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OCT  14  1912 


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BT  101  . L444  1901 
Leighton,  Joseph  Alexander, 
1870- 

Typical  modern  conceptions 
of  God 


-  ^ 


) 


* 


*■ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/typicalrnoderncon00leig_0 


TYPICAL  MODERN 
CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


v-X.  4 


•  >  -  yj  i  nih  -■ 


V 


TYPICAL  MODERNV  , 
CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


THE  ABSOLUTE  OF  GERMAN  ROMANTIC  IDEALISM 
AND  OF  ENGLISH  EVOLUTIONARY  AGNOSTICISM 


WITH 

A  CONSTRUCTIVE  ESSAY 


BY 


JOSEPH  ALEXANDER  LEIGHTON 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Hobart  College 


LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 

91  AND  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 
LONDON  AND  BOMBAY 
1901 


Copyright,  1901,  by 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 


All  rights  reserved 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  chapters  which  constitute  the  present 
volume,  with  the  exception  of  the  one  on  Schleier- 
macher,  which  has  been  written  merely  to  round 
out  the  work,  had  their  origin  in  a  thesis  presented 
to  the  Faculty  of  Cornell  University  some  seven 
years  ago  in  partial  fulfilment  of  the  requirements 
for  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy. 

The  original  essays  on  Fichte  and  Hegel  were 
published  in  the  Philosophical  Review.  These 
have  since  been  very  much  altered  and  greatly 
enlarged,  and,  indeed,  the  whole  ‘work  has  been 
rewritten. 

The  four  men  whose  views  are  considered,  viz., 
Fichte,  Hegel,  Schleiermacher,  and  Spencer,  were 
chosen  by  the  writer  for  a  comparative  study  be¬ 
cause  of  the  typical  and  partially  complementary 
character  of  their  respective  treatments  of  the 
problem  of  the  Absolute — the  problem  of  the 
metaphysical  conception  of  God. 

Fichte  and  Hegel  represent  first  parallel  and 
then  diverging  growths  from  the  common  root  of 
the  Kantian  critiques.  Fichte’s  earliest  writings 
on  the  philosophy  of  religion  exhibit  clearly  the 
effects  of  Kant’s  criticism,  particularly  in  its  prac- 


VI 


INTRODUCTION 


tical  aspects,  on  a  mind  of  great  speculative  power, 
but  with  a  predominant  bent  towards  the  realiza¬ 
tion  of  the  good  will  and  with  the  conscience  of  a 
reformer.  And  Fichte’s  development  exhibits  in 
a  very  interesting  fashion  the  growth  of  such  a 
mind,  which,  starting  from  purely  ethical  prem¬ 
ises,  finds  itself  impelled  to  lay  a  distinctively 
metaphysical  groundwork  for  life  and  religion. 
Every  one  of  his  writings  reflects  afresh  the  rest¬ 
less  ethical  will  which  is  the  motive  of  them  all. 
His  system  is  pan-ethelism  or  voluntarism. 

Fichte  embodies  in  his  writings  the  principal 
stages  of  the  transition  from  Kantian  criticism  to 
an  idealistic  metaphysics.  Hegel,  on  the  other 
hand,  offers  but  slight  traces  of  this  development. 
Aided  by  the  imaginative  pantheism  of  Schelling, 
he  passes  at  once  to  a  speculative,  metaphysical 
conception  of  the  Absolute  as  wholly  immanent 
in  the  temporal  world  of  human  experience.  He 
labors  to  subjugate  all  spheres  of  existence,  every 
phase  of  human  experience,  to  the  dominion  of 
the  immanent  Divine  Reason.  In  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  his  conception  of  the  Absolute  we  mark 
no  pronounced  transitional  stages,  no  severe  in¬ 
ward  struggles,  no  apparent  change  of  view.  From 
first  to  last  his  thought  moves  in  the  serene  ether 
of  pure  speculation,  and  its  development,  in  spite 
of  the  contradictions  which  it  swallows  and  digests 
in  its  all-devouring  maw,  is  a  placid  logical  growth. 
Hegel  is  the  type  of  the  metaphysician  pure  and 


INTRODUCTION 


•  • 
Vll 

simple.  His  doctrine  is  pan-logism  in  its  most 
thoroughgoing  expression. 

Schleiermacher  denies  the  possibility  of  a  purely 
speculative  knowledge  of  the  Absolute-in-himself ; 
i.e.y  of  God  conceived  out  of  relation  to  man.  In 
this  denial  he  is  truer  to  the  spirit  of  the  Kantian 
critique  than  either  Fichte  or  Hegel.  But  Schleier¬ 
macher  goes  beyond  Kant,  and  on  a  road  inde¬ 
pendent  of  Fichte’s  and  Hegel’s,  in  his  doctrine 
of  the  Absolute  as  the  immediately  felt  unity  of 
thought  and  being,  of  man  and  the  universe.  His 
distinctive  doctrine  is  that  man  possesses  an  im¬ 
mediate  consciousness  of  the  Absolute,  that  there 
is  in  man  a  unique  and  direct  sense  or  feeling  of 
God’s  presence  ;  and  although  he  makes  use  of  the 
then  prevailing  dialectic  method — i.e.,  of  the  union 
of  opposites — he  holds  that  the  immediate  God- 
consciousness  transcends  the  dialectic  process. 

Schelling  I  have  not  taken  up  for  two  reasons. 
First,  his  many  and  chameleon-like  changes  of 
view  would  demand  a  more  extended  treatment 
than  falls  within  the  scope  of  this  work,  and, 
secondly,  I  do  not  think  such  an  exposition  would 
be  worth  the  trouble  expended  on  it,  for  the  most 
valuable  ideas  of  Schelling  are  to  be  found  either 
in  Fichte,  Hegel,  or  Schleiermacher,  since  Schel¬ 
ling  started  from  Fichte,  Hegel  from  Schelling, 
and  Schleiermacher  developed  an  independent 
philosophy  of  identity. 

Spencer  stands  as  the  philosophical  representa- 


vm 


INTRODUCTION 


tive  of  modern  physical  views  of  the  universe.  His 
Unknowable  is  the  indestructible  energy  of  our 
text-books  and  popular  works  on  physics,  raised 
to  the  nth  power.  His  method  of  speculation 
stands  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  methods  of  Fichte 
and  Hegel.  This  contrast  of  method,  together 
with  the  currency  which  Mr.  Spencer’s  views  have 
gained,  have  led  me  to  incorporate  a  treatment  of 
his  views.  Mr.  Spencer’s  system  is  pan-dynamism. 

So  we  have  four  absolutes — that  of  Will,  finding 
its  completion  in  the  intuition  of  perfect  attain¬ 
ment  ;  that  of  Reason,  comprehending  itself  as 
the  eternal  process  of  the  world  and  finding  that 
all  is  good;  that  of  Feeling,  which  apprehends  the 
unity  of  things  in  a  single  and  immediate  act  of 
consciousness ;  and  finally  that  of  Blind  Energy, 
which  seems,  in  a  cross-section  of  time  and  as 
viewed  by  the  average  spectator,  to  have  a 
definite  direction,  but  which  in  reality  has  neither 
whence  nor  whither,  and  no  other  goal  than  the 
meaningless  eternal  oscillation  between  states  of 
motion  and  states  of  rest. 

To  state  and  criticise  these  typical  views  was 
the  primary  object  of  this  work.  But  in  this 
criticism  certain  positive  views  are  of  necessity  im¬ 
plied.  In  the  fifth  chapter  these  positive  philo¬ 
sophical  doctrines  are  outlined.  I  am  conscious 
of  the  meagre  and  sketchy  treatment  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  in  this  final  chapter.  It  would  require  a 
separate  large  volume  to  deal  at  all  adequately 


INTRODUCTION 


ix 


with  the  subject.  Such  an  extensive  treatment 
would,  however,  fall  outside  the  scope  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  work.  On  the  other  hand,  the  views  implied 
in  the  other  chapters  seemed  to  call  for  a  more 
positive  statement  on  those  aspects  of  the  whole 
subject  most  emphasized  in  the  previous  pages. 
The  last  chapter  is  therefore  offered  as  an  outline 
treatment  of  the  questions  which  were  most 
in  my  mind  in  my  studies  of  Fichte,  Hegel,  and 
Spencer.  These  are  the  problem  of  the  relation 
of  the  One  and  the  Many,  and  even  more  promi¬ 
nently  the  relation  of  the  Absolute  to  Time.  It  is 
hoped  that  the  method  of  treatment  and  the 
direction  of  the  work  towards  a  constructive  con¬ 
clusion  have  given  a  unity  to  the  whole  which 
would  not  be  apparent  from  the  table  of  contents. 

I  have  purposely  limited  myself  to  a  treatment 
of  but  two  phases  of  the  problem  of  the  Absolute 
— a  full  treatment  would  involve  especially  an 
extended  consideration  of  the  growth  and  nature 
of  an  Individual  and  of  the  place  of  Error  and 
Truth,  Evil  and  Goodness,  and  Ugliness  and 
Beauty  in  the  universe.  On  these  latter  subjects 
I  do  not  feel  ready  to  write  at  present,  even  in 
outline,  but  I  hope  within  a  few  years  to  return 
to  the  treatment  of  some  of  them.  They  consti¬ 
tute  respectively  the  central  questions  of  the 
metaphysics  of  knowledge,  of  ethics,  and  of  aes¬ 
thetics. 

I  am  glad  of  this  opportunity  to  express  my 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


deep  obligations  to  William  Clark,  J.  G.  Schurman, 
and  J.  E.  Creighton  for  stimulus  and  criticism  at 
various  times  in  the  past,  and  to  the  writings  of 

F.  H.  Bradley  and  Josiah  Royce.  For  a  renewed 
interest  in  Schleiermacher  I  am  indebted  to  Prof. 

G.  Class,  of  Erlangen.  My  debts  to  the  philoso¬ 
phers  who  have  passed  into  history  are  too  nu¬ 
merous  to  make  acknowledgment  possible. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction . v 


CHAPTER  I. 

Fichte’s  Conception  of  God .  i 

1.  Introductory .  i 

2.  Fichte’s  First  Period  ......  2 

3.  Fichte’s  Later  Views . 22 

4.  Conclusion  . . 27 


CHAPTER  II. 


Hegel’s  Conception  of  God . 35 

1.  Introductory  General  Notions  ....  35 

2.  The  Full  Expression  of  Hegel’s  Conception  of 

God  in  the  “  Philosophy  of  Religion”  .  .  46 

3.  Conclusion  . . 68 


CHAPTER  III. 

Schleiermacher’s  Conception  of  God  ...  74 

1.  Schleiermacher’s  Doctrine  of  God  in  its  Various 


Aspects  ........  75 

A.  The  General  Attitude  as  Expressed  in  the 

Reden  iiber  Religion  .  .  .  .  75 

B.  The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Dialektic  .  .  79 

C.  The  Doctrine  of  God  in  the  “Christian 

Faith”  ......  87 


Xll 


CONTENTS 


2.  Schleiermacher’s  Relations  to  Spinoza,  Kant, 

Fichte,  and  Schelling  .  ...  . 

3.  The  Significance  of  Schleiermacher’s  Conception 

of  God  «.*«..«« 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Mr.  Spencer’s  Unknown  God  . 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Absolute,  the  Finite  Individual,  and  the 
Time-Process . 

1.  The  Implications  of  Finite  Experience 

2.  The  Evolutionary  or  Historical  Process— The 

Genesis  and  Growth  of  the  Individual  is  its 
Meaning  ........ 

3.  The  Absolute  and  the  Time-Process — The  Terms 

of  their  Union  ....... 

4.  Further  Positive  Determination  of  the  Absolute  in 

Relation  to  Man — The  Absolute  is  the  Immedi¬ 
ately  Experienced  Unity  of  Will  and  Thought  . 


PAGE 

93 

97 

103 

126 

126 

139 

155 

170 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS 

OF  GOD 


CHAPTER  I. 

FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD. 
i.  Introductory . 

Fichte's  utterances  on  the  philosophy  of  re¬ 
ligion  extend  over  almost  the  entire  period  of  his 
philosophical  activity.  They  mark  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  his  thought  from  1790  (he  was  born  in 
1762)  until  1813,  a  year  before  his  death.  His 
views  on  the  nature  of  God  contain  the  core  of 
his  philosophy,  for,  in  common  with  the  other 
great  post-Kantians,  Schelling  and  Hegel,  the 
goal  of  Fichte’s  philosophy  is  the  discovery  of 
an  absolute  first  principle  which  shall  for  the 
philosophic  thinker  fill  the  place  that,  in  com¬ 
mon  unreasoned  thought  and  in  popular  theol¬ 
ogy,  is  occupied  by  the  doctrine  of  an  anthro- 
pomorphically  conceived  God.  Fichte  gave  re¬ 
peated  expression  to  his  doctrine  of  God  and  of 
religion,  but  it  was  not  until  the  year  1806, 
in  The  Way  to  the  Blessed  Life  (Anweisungen 


2 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


zum  seligen  Leben  oder  auch  die  Religions  lehr  e') , 
that  he  developed  his  doctrine  with  systematic 
fulness.  The  difference  in  tone  and  in  expres¬ 
sion  between  this  work  and  his  earlier  essays  and 
fugitive  remarks  on  the  same  subject,  together 
with  his  repeated  esoteric  and  exoteric  expositions 
of  the  Science  of  Knowledge ,  have  given  rise  to 
the  view  that  Fichte’s  earlier  and  later  philoso¬ 
phies  are  radically  different.  I  hope  to  show 
that,  notwithstanding  certain  variations  of  ex¬ 
pression  and  a  shifting  of  emphasis,  Fichte’s  doc¬ 
trine  of  God  is  nevertheless  a  unity  in  which  the 
change  is  a  development.  In  order  to  exhibit 
this  unity  we  must  follow  the  historical  order  of 
his  writings. 


2.  Fichte  s  First  Period . 

The  earliest  expression  of  Fichte’s  views  on  the 
nature  of  God  is  contained  in  his  Aphorisms  on 
Religion  and  Deism  (1790),  written  before  he  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Kant’s  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason.  In  these  he  says  that  it  seems  to  be  a 
universal  need  of  the  heart  to  seek  in  God  attri¬ 
butes  which  speculation  must  deny  to  him.  If  one 
follow  one’s  reflection  ( Nachdenken )  one  can  reach 
only  the  bare  conclusion  that  there  is  a  necessary 
Being  through  whose  thought  the  world  arises. 
The  first  cause  of  every  change  in  the  world  is  the 
original  or  creative  thought  of  God.  Therefore 
every  feeling  and  thinking  being  necessarily  exists 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


3 


just  as  it  is.1  But  there  are  moments  when 
the  inexorable  God  of  speculation  fails  to  satisfy 
the  heart.  There  arises  intensest  longing  for  some¬ 
thing  more  than  this  abstract  principle.  Head 
and  heart  are  in  contradiction.  One  cannot  resolve 
the  contradiction  speculatively.  One  would  be 
saved  from  it  if  one  could  only  cut  off  determi¬ 
nistic  speculation  where  it  crosses  the  boundary 
line  between  theoretical  thought  and  the  desires 
of  the  heart.  But  how  can  one  do  this?2 

With  this  interrogation  the  record  of  Fichte’s 
early  religious  difficulties  closes.  Very  soon  after¬ 
wards  he  began  the  study  of  Kant’s  philosophy, 
and  we  know,  from  his  letters  to  his  fiancee,  writ¬ 
ten  at  this  time,  with  what  enthusiasm  he  em¬ 
braced  Kant’s  doctrine.3  No  one,  he  said,  had 
refuted  his  determinism,  but  it  had  failed  to  sat¬ 
isfy  his  heart,  and  the  Kantian  criticism  seemed 
to  him  to  leave  a  place  for  the  needs  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  in  the  determination  of  the  nature  of  God. 
His  Attempt  at  a  Critique  of  All  Revelation}  writ¬ 
ten  in  1791,  two  years  earlier  than  Kant’s  corre¬ 
sponding  work  on  religion,  and  submitted  to  Kant 
for  examination,  although  wholly  Fichte’s  own 
in  method  and  style,  is  a  criticism  of  the  possibil¬ 
ity,  nature,  and  limits  of  a  divine  revelation  based 
on  Kant’s  practical  philosophy. 

1  Werke,  V.,  p.  6.  *  Ibid.,  V.,  p.  8. 

3  J.  G.  Fichte’s  Leben  u.  Briefwechsel,  by  his  son,  J.  H. 
Fichte,  I.,  p.  81  ff.,  especially  the  letter  of  September  5,  1790. 


4 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


In  this  work  Fichte  begins  with  a  theory  of  the 
moral  will,  on  which  he  says  the  deduction  of  the 
nature  of  religion  must  be  based.  The  material 
of  moral  action  is  given  by  impulse.  But  an  act 
of  will  is  the  determination  of  one’s  self,  with  the 
consciousness  of  one’s  own  spontaneous  activity  ; 
so  that  the  primal  impulse  must  be  carried  out 
spontaneously  if  there  is  to  result  free  and  hence 
moral  action.  The  higher  faculty  of  desire,  the 
source  of  the  highest  impulse  to  action,  is  the 
idea  of  th <z  Absolutely  Right 4  If  the  moral  impulse 
is  to  be  satisfied  the  moral  law  must  govern  na¬ 
ture.  This  can  happen  only  in  a  Being  in  which 
moral  necessity  and  absolute  physical  freedom 
are  united.  Consequently  the  existence  of  God 
is  to  be  assumed  with  the  same  certainty  as  the 
moral  law.  In  God  the  moral  law  alone  rules,  and 
without  limitation.  It  follows  that  God  is  holy , 
blessed ,  and,  in  relation  to  the  sense-world,  all- 
powerful?  Moreover,  he  must  be  just,  for  he  must 
bring  about  a  full  congruence  between  morality 
and  the  happiness  of  finite,  natural  beings.  Fur¬ 
ther,  since,  into  the  concept  of  existence,  nothing 
can  be  thought  beyond  the  series  of  causes  and 
effects  in  the  sense-world  and  the  free  decisions 
of  moral  beings,  God  must  know  both  :  the  former 
since  he  is  its  author,  the  latter  since  it  is  the  meas- 

1  Versuch  einer  Kritik  alter  Offenbarung.  IVerke ,  V.,  pp.  24, 

25. 

2  Werke ,  V.,  p.  40. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


5 


ure  according  to  which  he  distributes  happiness  to 
men ;  therefore  he  must  be  all-knowing.  More¬ 
over,  the  moral  law  has  eternal  validity.  Eternity 
is  required  for  God  to  establish  the  balance  be¬ 
tween  morality  and  happiness  ;  therefore  God  must 
b ^  eternal ?x  These  principles  are  postulates  of 
reason,  subjective  but  universally  valid,  and  the 
assumption  on  which  they  are  based  is  an  act  of 
faith.  Religion  is  founded  on  the  idea  of  God  as 
the  determiner  of  nature  to  moral  ends.2  Our 
obligation  to  the  will  of  God  is  our  obligation  to 
the  laws  of  the  practical  reason.3  The  highest 
good  is  the  only  unconditioned  absolute  end  we 
know.  The  highest  good  is  the  supreme  practi¬ 
cal  law  of  reason  ;  and  if  reason  in  us  lacks  power 
in  the  conflict  with  natural  inclination,  by  regard¬ 
ing  the  law  of  reason  as  a  divine  command,  we 
are  able  to  feel  ourselves  answerable  to  a  Being 
who  demands  our  deepest  reverence.  But  to  dis¬ 
obey  the  command  then  becomes  a  sin  against 
the  Absolute  Reason.  In  this  way  the  thought  of 
God  strengthens  our  reason.  So,  while  in  general 
reason  must  determine  us  to  obey  the  will  of  God, 
in  particular  cases  the  will  of  God  may  determine 
us  to  obey  reason.4  We  may  regard  the  procla¬ 
mation  of  the  moral  law  through  self-conscious¬ 
ness  as  God’s  proclamation  of  his  own  nature.5 

1  Werke ,  V.,  pp.  40,  41.  3  Ibid.,  pp.  52,  53. 

2  Ibid. ,  p.  51.  4  Ibid.,  p.  55. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  61. 


0 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


This  is  his  supernatural  proclamation  within  us. 
He  may  also  reveal  himself  in  the  sense-world. 
Indeed  the  entire  system  of  phenomena  may  ap¬ 
pear  as  a  revelation,1  and,  further,  when  a  man  or 
humanity  has  sunk  so  low  that  the  moral  laws 
given  by  pure  reason  have  lost  their  power,  a  par¬ 
ticular  fact  in  the  world  of  sense  may  give  sanc¬ 
tion  to  the  moral  law.  The  pure  moral  impulse 
may  be  specially  revealed  to  man,  when  he  has 
sunk  into  a  degenerate  state,  through  the  medium 
of  sense-phenomena.2  There  may  be  cases  where 
a  revelation  is  necessary  to  produce  moral  feeling 
in  a  race.3  But  in  any  case  the  authority  of  a 
revelation  must  not  compel  obedience,  but  only 
draw  attention  to  the  moral  law.4  The  criterion 
of  a  revelation  is  the  correspondence  of  its  princi¬ 
ples  with  the  moral  law  given  independejitly  by 
practical  reason. 

It  is  clear  that  the  Critique  of  All  Revelation  is 
essentially  Kantian,  in  that  it  derives  the  existence 
and  attributes  of  God  from  the  necessity  of  find¬ 
ing  in  the  universe  a  sure  footing  for  the  realiza¬ 
tion  of  the  moral  law  in  finite  beings  and  for  the 
consummation  of  the  union  in  such  beings  of 
happiness  with  virtue.  On  the  other  hand,  Fichte, 
in  this  work,  does  not  conceive  God  after  the 
fashion  of  Kant’s  moral  Deus  ex  Machina.  We 
find  throughout  the  Critiqiie  suggestions  of  the 

1  Werke,  V.,  p.  70.  3  Ibid.,  pp.  91-94. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  80,  81.  4  Ibid.,  p.  98. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


7 


doctrine,  soon  to  be  developed  by  Fichte,  that  the 
only  reality  in  human  experience  is  to  be  found 
in  the  system  of  interacting  and  morally  free  cen¬ 
tres  of  self-consciousness.  Already  morality  is 
identified  with  the  completely  free  action  of  these 
individual  /’ s,  and  God  is  the  immanent ,  unify¬ 
ing  principle  of  the  moral  universe  which  is  con¬ 
stituted  by  the  /’ s.  The  step  is  already  taken 
from  Kant’s  doctrine  of  a  transcendent  ethical 
Being  to  an  immanent  principle  of  ethical  life. 
God  may  transcend  the  sense-world,  but  not  the 
moral  world. 

For  the  next  six  years  Fichte  busied  himself 
with  the  development  of  the  groundwork  of  his 
system  in  its  general  theoretical  and  practical 
aspects.  In  1792  he  lays  down  in  his  Review  of 
ZEnesidemus  (published  in  the  Jena  Liter  atur- 
Zeitung  for  1794)  a  deed-act  {That -handlung)  as  the 
fundamental  principle  of  philosophy.1  This  deed- 
act  is  the  self-creating  intellectual  intuition  by  the 
/  of  itself.2  The  philosophical  ultimate  is  the 
action  whereby  the  /  intuits  and  so  posits  itself. 
To  be  self-conscious  is  to  posit  one’s  self;  i.e.,  to 
exist.3  The  primal  fact  in  being  is  action .  Ini 
Anfang  war  die  That .  Starting  from  this  primi- 

1  Werke,  I.,  p.  8.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  16,  22. 

3  Professor  Everett  (Fichte’s  Science  of  Knowledge ,  p.  71) 
holds  that  positing  (Seized)  does  not  primarily  mean  for  Fichte 
creation.  But  the  I  is  only  by  virtue  of  its  activity  as  positing. 
Is  not  this  self-creation  ? 


8 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


tive  deed-act  of  self-consciousness,  by  which  and 
in  which  the  latter  alone  is,  Fichte  builds  up  his 
Wissenschaftslekre  of  the  year  1794.  To  this  first 
systematic  form  of  his  philosophy  belong  likewise 
the  two  Introductions  of  1797. 

The  primitive  act  of  consciousness  is  the  asser¬ 
tion  of  its  own  identity.  This  is  expressed  in  the 
formal  proposition  A  is  A,  or  A  =  A.  The 
empirical  connection  asserted  in  a  given  form  of 
this  proposition  may  be  false  ;  but  the  form  of 
the  proposition  is  always  valid,  and  the  bare  asser¬ 
tion  of  any  identity  whatsoever  depends  on  the 
identity  of  the  /.  The  act  of  assertion  itself  con¬ 
stitutes  the  identity  of  the  I.1  But  the  proposi¬ 
tion  A  is  A  is  only  possible  through  the  proposi¬ 
tion  A  is  not  not-A.  In  the  latter  proposition 
there  is  involved  the  assertion  of  the  existence  of 
a  not-1 ,  which  excludes  the  self-identical  I.  To 
the  I  there  is  absolutely  opposed  a  not-I.  Never¬ 
theless  in  this  difference  the  I  maintains  the 
identity  of  its  own  consciousness,2  which  latter 
indeed  is  possible  only  through  the  consciousness 
at  the  same  time  of  a  difference.  The  I  is  pro¬ 
duced  by  its  return  into  itself.3  This  return  is  an 
intellectual  intuition  of  its  own  free  act.4  The 
not-I  is  posited  by  the  /.  It  is  the  limit  set  up 
by  the  /,  in  opposition  and  relation  to  which  the 


1  Werke ,  I.,  pp.  91-98. 

2  Ibid. ,  p.  106  ff. 


3  Ibid.,  p.  458. 

1  Ibid. ,  p.  459  ff. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


9 


I  may  exercise  its  own  conscious  activity.1  The 
absolute  I  can  be  determined  by  nothing  else.2 
The  I  sets  up  a  check  or  limit  ( Anstoss )  to  its 
own  activity.  Without  this  check  there  could  be 
no  self-determination ;  without  self-determination 
there  could  be  no  check,  nothing  objective.3  The 
check  exists  because  the  I  must  posit  itself  at 
once  as  finite  and  as  infinite.  Without  the  infinite 
there  can  be  no  limitation  (finitude),  and  vice  versa. 
Infinity  and  limitation  are  united  in  one  and  the 
same  synthetic  terms.  The  I  distinguishes  itself 
from  its  own  unlimited  activity.  This  activity 
consists  in  so  positing  itself  without  limitation. 
This  play  of  the  absolute  I  with  itself,  by  which 
the  I  strives  to  unite  opposites  (the  finite  and  the 
infinite),  is  the  faculty  of  imagination  ( Einbil - 
du?igskraft ).4  This  continual  play  of  opposites  is 
the  condition  of  the  possibility  of  knowledge. 
Reality  is  the  product  of  the  imagination,  which 
presents  these  opposites,  the  finite-subjective  and 
the  infinite-objective,  for  contemplation.5 

The  unceasing  activity  of  intelligence  is  for 
Fichte  the  absolute  principle  of  things.  He  says 
“  Intelligence  is  a  constant  action  ”  ( Thun ).6 

Objectivity  is  nothing  more  than  the  intuition 
by  intelligence  of  its  own  action.7  But  how  can 

1  Werke,  I.,  p.  no  ff.  4  Ibid. ,  p.  215. 

2  Ibid. ,  p.  1 19.  6  Ibid.,  pp.  226,  227. 

3  Ibid. ,  p.  212.  0  Ibid. ,  p.  440. 

7  Ibid.,  p.  492. 


IO 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


we  be  sure  that  this  intellectual  intuition  is  ulti¬ 
mate  ?  Faith  in  it,  says  Fichte,  can  be  based  only 
on  the  conviction  that  reason  1  is  the  end,  person¬ 
ality  a  means. 

The  absolute  I  is  thus  the  one  universal  activity 
of  intelligence  underlying  the  system  of  finite 
conscious  F s.  The  finite  I  is  a  form  of  the  mani¬ 
festation  of  the  free  activity  of  the  Eternal  Reason.2 
In  his  Foundation  of  Natural  Rights  (1796)  and  the 
System  of  Ethics  Fichte  deduces  the  rights  and 
duties  of  finite  individuals  from  the  general  prin¬ 
ciples  of  the  Science  of  Knowledge.  In  the  Science 
of  Rights  he  says  that  if  a  rational  being  is  to  posit 
itself  it  must  be  wholly  self-determined,  i.e.,  free, 
and,  if  free,  it  must  posit  a  sensuous  world  on 
which  to  exercise  this  freedom.  It  must  ascribe  a 
like  freedom  to  others ;  hence  it  must  posit  other 
rational  beings.  Therefore  it  is  really  the  univer¬ 
sal  or  absolute  /  which  posits  itself  in  this  whole 
system  of  related  finite  /’ s.  In  the  System  of 
Ethics  Fichte  defines  Reason,  or  the  quality  of 
being  an  /,  as  the  union  of  subject  and  object.3  In 
itself  the  /  is  pure  will.4  Volition  is  the  absolute 
tendency  towards  the  Absolute.5  It  is  pure  activ¬ 
ity.6  Impulse  (Tried)  is  this  activity  determined 
in  a  definite  direction  and  objectified.7  The  deter- 

1  Werke ,  I.,  p.  466.  4  Ibid.,  pp.  25,  26. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  505.  6  Ibid. ,  p.  28. 

3  Werke,  IV.,  p.  1.  *  Ibid.,  p.  38. 

7  Ibid.,  p.  105. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


1 1 

mination  is  a  limitation  of  the  /,  and  gives  rise  to 
feeling.  Nature  is  the  organic  whole  of  impulses ; 1 
i.e.,  of  the  series  of  determinations  of  the  universal 
activity  of  intelligence.  There  is  no  Nature-in- 
itself.  My  own  nature  and  all  other  natures  that 
are  posited  to  explain  the  first  nature  constitute 
only  a  particular  way  of  observing  myself.2 

The  last  statement,  taken  by  itself,  might  con¬ 
vey  the  impression  that  the  finite  individual  I  and 
the  absolute  I  are  the  same.  But  it  is  abundantly 
evident  from  a  consideration  of  the  Science  of 
Knowledge ,  the  Science  of  Rights,  and  the  System 
of  Ethics  that  the  absolute  I  is  the  impersoyial  and 
universal  Intelligence  which  is  immanent  in  and 
gives  reality  to  the  entire  activity  of  the  finite  F s 
in  all  their  relations,  active  and  passive.  More¬ 
over,  this  universal  /  is  ceaseless  activity,  actus 
purus ,  absolute  rational  will.  It  is  the  only  reality, 
for  the  sense-world  has  no  reality  in  itself.  Fichte’s 
system  is  not  solipsistic ,  but  acosmistic.  The  idea 
of  the  absolute  I  is,  when  viewed  from  the  practical 
standpoint,  the  idea  of  God.3  The  pure  I  is  posited 
outside  ourselves,  and  called  God. 

Now  there  follows  a  series  of  essays  which  deal 
directly  with  the  idea  of  God  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  Science  of  Knowledge.  The  first  of  these 
is  entitled  On  the  Ground  of  Our  Faith  in  a  Divine 

1  Werke ,  IV.,  p.  114.  2  Ibid.,  p.  133. 

8  Fichte  to  Jacobi,  August  30,  1795.  Leben  u.  Briefwechsd , 
II.,  p.  169.  See  also  the  Review  of  REnesidemus ,  op.  cit. 


12 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


Government  of  the  World.  This  is  a  brief  state¬ 
ment  prefixed  to  an  article  by  Forberg  On  the 
Definition  of  the  Idea  of  Religion,  in  the  Philosoph¬ 
ical  Journal (1798),  edited  by  Fichte  and  Nietham- 
mer.  Forberg  in  this  article  identified  religion  and 
morality.  Fichte  agreed  with  him  so  far  as  he 
went,  but  found  it  necessary  to  explain  his  own 
views,  because  Forberg  stopped  short  and  failed  to 
draw  out  the  implications  of  his  position.  Philos¬ 
ophy,  our  author  urged,  produces  no  facts  ;  it  only 
explains  them.  The  philosopher  presupposes  the 
fact  of  faith  in  God,  and  “  deduces  this  fact  from 
the  necessary  procedure  of  every  reasoning  being.’ ’ 1 
Faith  is  not  arbitrarily  assumed,  but  is  necessary. 
Two  standpoints  are  possible,  namely,  the  tran¬ 
scendental  and  that  which  is  occupied  by  common 
consciousness  and  natural  science  alike.  From  the 
latter  standpoint  the  sense-world  is  viewed  as  an 
absolutely  self-existent  whole,  and  every  event  in 
it  proceeds  according  to  its  own  immanent  laws. 
To  argue  from  the  existence  of  this  sense-world  to 
an  Intelligence  who  is  the  author  of  it,  is  to  cheat 
us  with  empty  words.  All  the  determinations  of 
this  intelligence  are  conceptions,  and  how  can  these 
either  create  matter  ex  nihiloox  modify  an  eternal 
matter?  From  the  transcendental  point  of  view, 
there  is  no  self-existent  world,  and  what  we  see  is 
only  the  reappearance  of  our  own  inner  activity. 
From  the  sense-world  we  cannot  reach  in  any  way 

1  Wer/ce,  V.,  p.  178. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


13 


the  moral  World-Order.  One  must  seek  the  latter 
in  the  region  of  the  supersensaous.  Now,  I  have 
the  absolute  conviction  or  faith  that  I  can  deter¬ 
mine  my  own  moral  nature,  which  is  supersensuous, 
to  act  in  a  certain  way.1  I  am  free  to  set  before 
myself  a  moral  end,  and  “  I  posit  this  end  as  real¬ 
ized  in  some  future  time.”  I  am  convinced  that 
this  end  will  be  realized.  I  must  do  this,  or  deny 
my  own  being.  But  it  does  not  lie  within  my 
power  to  realize  any  moral  end  in  the  world.  I 
can  only  determine  myself  to  make  the  choice. 
The  end  is  achieved  only  as  a  consequence  of  a 
higher  law,  a  moral  World-Order.  The  living  and 
working  moral  order  is  God  himself,  and  we  can  con¬ 
ceive  no  other.2  This  moral  World-Order  can  be 
deduced  from  nothing  else.  It  is  the  basis  of  all 
objective  knowledge,  the  ground  of  all  certainty. 
We  must  not  assume  a  particular  being  as  cause 
of  it.  If  we  assume  a  particular  being  (Seyri)  it 
must  be  distinguished  from  ourselves  and  the 
world,  and  personality  and  consciousness  will  be 
attributed  to  it.  It  will  be  a  finite  being,  a  multi¬ 
plication  of  the  individual,  and  no  God,  and  will 
explain  nothing.3  The  finite  cannot  comprehend 
the  infinite.  In  this  moral  World-Order  every  ra¬ 
tional  being  has  a  determined  place,  and  its  fate, 
so  far  as  it  results  directly  from  its  own  actions,  is 
the  result  of  the  World-Order.  The  true  atheism 
is  that  one  refuses  to  hearken  to  the  voice  of  his 
1  Werke,  V.,  p.  183.  2  Ibid.,  p.  186.  %  Ibid.,  p.  187. 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


conscience.1  Fichte  closes  his  article  with  two 
quotations,  which  he  says  express  his  own  views. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  well-known  passage  in 
Faust ,  beginning 

“  Who  dare  express  Him  ? 

And  who  profess  Him, 

Saying,  I  believe  in  Him  ! 

Who,  feeling,  seeing, 

Deny  His  Being,”  etc.2 

The  second,  from  Schiller’s  Worte  des  Glaubens ,  is 
as  follows  : 

“  And  God  is  ! — a  holy  Will  that  abides, 

Though  the  human  will  may  falter; 

High  over  both  Space  and  Time  it  rides, 

The  high  Thought  that  will  never  alter: 

And  while  all  things  in  change  eternal  roll, 

It  endures,  through  change,  a  motionless  soul.”3 

This  statement  of  his  position  brought  against 
him  the  accusation  of  atheism.  In  the  Appeal  to 
the  Public  against  the  Charge  0/  Atheism,  and  the 
Judicial  Answer  to  the  Charge  of  Atheism,  he  further 
develops  his  own  doctrine  in  contrast  with  that  of 
his  accusers.  He  contends  that  his  opponents  re¬ 
gard  God  as  a  particular  substance.  Substance 
means  with  them  “  a  sensible  being  existing  in  time 
and  space.”  This  God,  extended  in  time  and  space, 
they  deduce  from  the  sense-world.  Fichte  claims 
that  extension  or  corporeality  cannot  be  predi- 

1  Werke ,  V.,  p.  185.  2  Faust ,  part  I.,  scene  xvi. 

3  Merivale’s  translation,  quoted  in  Smith’s  Memoir ,  p.  96. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


15 


cated  of  the  Deity.1  The  sensuous  world  is  only 
the  reappearance  of  the  supersensuous  or  moral 
world  through  our  attempt  to  grasp  the  latter  by 
means  of  our  sensuous  faculty  of  presentation. 
The  sensuous  is  mere  appearance,  and  can  furnish 
no  ground  for  the  existence  of  God.  The  Deity 
is  not  to  be  understood  as  the  underlying  ground 
of  phenomena,  for,  so  conceived,  he  is  made  a 
corporeal  substrate.2  He  is  an  order  of  events, 
not  a  substance.  The  sensuous  predicate  of 
existence  is  not  to  be  applied  to  him,  for  the 
supersensuous  God  alone  is.  He  is  not  dead 
Being  ( Seyn ),  but  rather  pure  action,  the  life  and 
principle  of  the  supersensuous  World-Order.3  His 
opponents,  continue  Fichte,  deduce  all  relations 
of  the  Godhead  to  us  from  a  knowledge  of  God 
got  independently  of  these  relations.  Our  author 
denies  the  validity  of  their  procedure,  and  main¬ 
tains  that  the  relation  of  the  Godhead  to  us  as 
moral  beings  is  immediately  given.4  He  repeats 
the  statement  that  God  as  moral  World-Order  is 
postulated  as  guaranteeing  the  realization  of  the 
end  which  the  man  of  good  disposition  sets  before 
himself.  He  regards  God,  taken  in  such  a  sense, 
as  being  quite  as  immediately  certain  as  our  own 
existence.  Duty  cannot  be  done  absolutely  with¬ 
out  reference  to  an  end,  for  in  that  case  it  would 
be  without  content.  Man  must  act  with  regard  to 

1  IVerke,  V. ,  p.  258.  3  Ibid.,  p.  261. 

‘2  Ibid.,  p.  263.  4  Ibid.,  p.  214. 


1 6  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


an  end,  and  this  end  is  blessedness,  not  enjoyment. 
God  as  moral  World-Order  makes  it  possible  that 
this  end  be  realized.  On  the  other  hand,  the  end 
which  his  opponents  set  before  themselves  is  en¬ 
joyment.  Their  God  who  dispenses  enjoyment 
is  a  material  existence,  a  prince  of  this  world.1 
Eudaemonism  in  morals  is  allied  with  dogmatism  in 
speculation.  To  characterize  God  as  a  spirit  is  of 
negative  value  in  distinguishing  him  from  things 
material.2  It  gives  us  no  positive  information, 
for  we  know  as  little  wherein  the  being  of  a  spirit 
consists  as  wherein  the  being  of  God  consists. 
Inasmuch  as  all  our  thinking  is  limiting,  God  is 
inconceivable.3  To  determine  him  is  to  make  him 
finite.  If  personality  and  consciousness  are  to  be 
denied  of  God,  it  is  only  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
conceive  ourselves  as  personal  and  conscious.4 
God  is  a  wider  consciousness  than  we  are,  a  pure 
intelligence,  spiritual  life  and  actuality.  He  is 
neither  one  nor  many,  neither  man  nor  spirit. 
Such  predicates  belong  only  to  finite  beings. 
Again,  God’s  existence  cannot  be  proved.  Not 
from  the  sense-world,  for  Fichte’s  system  is  acos- 
mistic.  Not  from  the  supersensuous  world,  for 
proof  implies  mediation.  The  supersensuous 
World-Order  is  God,  and  is  immediately  perceived 
through  the  inner  sense.5 


1  Werke,  V.,  p.  218. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  265. 


3  Ibid.,  p.  264. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  266. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


17 

In  Reminiscences,  Answers,  and  Questions,  written 
in  1799,  but  not  published  until  after  his  death, 
Fichte  emphatically  asserts  that  speculation  does 
not  produce  the  idea  of  God.  Life  is  higher  than 
knowledge.1  Speculation  is  only  the  means  of 
knowing  Life.2  All  certainty  is  based  on  immediate 
feeling,  and  God  exists  in  the  immediacy  of  our 
felt  life.3  Philosophy  has  to  do  only  with  a  con¬ 
cept  of  the  idea  of  God.4  The  expression  “  order 
of  a  supersensuous  world  ”  has  been  misappre¬ 
hended.  It  is  not  to  be  understood  “  as  if  the 
supersensuous  world  were,  before  it  had  order, 
and  as  if  order  were  thus  but  an  accident  of  that 
world.  On  the  contrary,  that  world  only  becomes 
a  world  by  being  ordered.”5  The  philosopher  is 
not  concerned  with  the  actual  significance  of  God 
for  religion,  but  only  with  the  logical  significance 
for  philosophy.  Faith  in  the  moral  World-Order 
is  belief  in  a  “  principle  by  virtue  of  which  every 
determination  of  the  will  through  duty  assuredly 
effects  the  promotion  of  the  object  of  reason  in 
the  universal  connection  of  things.” 6  This  in¬ 
volves  the  presupposition  that  the  world  of  reason 
is  created,  maintained,  and  governed  by  this  prin¬ 
ciple.7  This  principle  or  World-Order  is  Activ¬ 
ity,  not  dead  Permanency.  It  is  a  living  being, 

1  Werke,  V.,  p.  352.  4  Ibid. ,  p.  348. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  342.  5  Ibid.,  p.  361. 

3  Ibid. ,  pp.  348,  356.  6  Ibid.,  pp.  363-4. 

7  Ibid.,  p.  366. 


2 


i8 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


“  creating,  maintaining,  governing.”  Inasmuch  as 
these  predicates  are  asserted  of  one  principle, 
when  we  reflect  we  must  think  a  permanent  sub¬ 
strate  to  which  these  belong  and  which  unites  the 
different  predicates.  The  oneness  is  mediate ;  the 
predicates  arise  immediately.  The  one  principle 
can  only  be  thought  of  “  as  a,  for  itself,  existing 
and  working  principle,”  1  as  pure  Spirit ,  as  Creator , 
Maintainer,  and  Governor.  But  this  thinking  is 
an  abstraction  Abstractly  the  principle  of  the 
world  is  a  logical  subject.  Concrete  thinking 
gives  us  God  as  Activity,  as  the  Creating,  Main¬ 
taining,  Governing,  etc.  “  The  conception  of 
God  cannot  be  determined  by  categories  of  exist¬ 
ence,  but  only  by  predicates  of  an  activity.”  2 
In  the  Vocation  of  Man,  published  in  1800,  God 
is  characterized  as  the  living  holy  Will  in  whom 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  He  reveals 
himself  in  the  heart,  and  is  comprehended  by 
faith.  He  is  best  known  to  the  simple  child-like 
mind.  Faith  in  duty  is  faith  in  God.  My  will  is 
apart  of  two  orders,  the  spiritual  and  the  sensuous. 
The  law  or  order  of  the  supersensuous  world  is  the 
Infinite  Will.  I  unite  myself  with  this  by  making 
my  will  conform  to  it.  The  voice  of  conscience, 
of  freedom,  in  my  breast  commands  me  to  do  this. 
The  Infinite  Will  unites  me  with  all  other  finite 
wills  in  a  world  or  system  of  many  individuals. 
The  union  and  direct  reciprocal  action  of  many 
1  Werke ,  V.,  p.  368.  2  Ibid.,  p.  371. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


l9 


separate  and  independent  wills  is  the  world.  What 
the  Infinite  is  in  himself,  no  finite  being  can  say. 
As  the  finite  mind  conceives  it,  he  is  self-existing, 
self-manifesting  Will. 

It  had  been  asserted  that  Fichte’s  doctrine  of 
God  was  pantheism,  that  in  his  theory  finite 
beings  are  the  constituent  parts  of  the  moral 
world,  and  that  our  relation  to  one  another  is  the 
World-Order.  Fichte  deals  with  this  charge  in 
“From  a  private  letter,”  published  in  the  Philo¬ 
sophical  Journal  in  1800.  His  opponents,  he  says, 
understand  by  order  something  dead,  fixed,  and 
ready-made.  Their  order  consists  of  a  manifold  of 
things  lying  beside  and  following  one  another 
[Or do  ordinatus ).  He,  on  the  contrary,  under¬ 
stands  by  order  an  active,  working  principle  ( Ordo 
ordinans).  In  all  human  actions,  two  things  are 
reckoned,  a  determination  of  the  individual’s  will 
and  something  independent  of  his  will,  by  which 
a  consequence  follows  his  willing.  So  in  morality, 
if  A  stand  for  the  determination  of  the  will  to  an 
end,  and  B  for  that  principle  through  which  there 
comes  about  a  consequence  necessarily  connected 
with  A,  then  the  law  of  the  connection  of  A  and 
B  in  the  moral  order  of  things  is  the  moral  World- 
Order,  and  is  outside  of,  and  independent  of,  finite 
moral  beings. 

Fichte  now  found  it  necessary  to  correct  the 
misunderstanding  that  his  absolute  /  was  the  same 
as  the  finite  individual  I.  In  the  Sun-Clear  Report 


20 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


to  the  Larger  Public  (1801)  he  makes  plain  the 
distinction.1  It  may  have  been  this  misinterpre¬ 
tation  which  led  him,  in  the  Exposition  of  the 
Science  of  Knowledge  of  the  year  1801,  to  change 
his  terminology.  In  place  of  the  absolute  /  there 
now  appears  the  absolute  Act  of  Knowing  ( Wis - 
sen)  as  the  starting-point  for  the  deduction  of  the 
theoretical  and  practical  worlds.  This  Absolute 
Knowing  is  characterized  in  the  same  manner  as 
the  absolute  I.  Knowing  is  a  bemg  in  and  for  it¬ 
self  and  a  dwelling  in  and  disposing  of  itself.2  It  is 
the  absolute  interpenetration  of  Being  and  Free¬ 
dom?  It  is  the  fusion  of  the  unifying  and  the  dis¬ 
persive  tendencies  of  thought  into  an  identity.4 
Knowing  is  the  intellectual  intuition  of  the  Abso¬ 
lute,  and  this  is  Spirit.  In  the  universe  there  is 
no  death,  no  lifeless  material,  but  rather  only 
Life,  Spirit,  Intelligence.5  In  this  exposition  the 
word  being  ( Seyn i)  is  used  to  designate  absolute 
knowing.  In  the  Science  of  Knowledge  of  1804 6 
being  and  thought  are  identified.  Fichte  had 
formerly  denied  the  applicability  of  the  predi¬ 
cate  being  (Seyn)  to  God  on  the  ground  that 
it  was  a  sensuous  concept  and  denoted  some¬ 
thing  dead  and  fixed,  whereas  God  is  pure  ac¬ 
tivity.  It  has  been  maintained  by  some  that 
the  introduction  of  the  word  being  into  these 

1  Werke,  II.,  p.  382.  4  Ibid.,  p.  22. 

2  Ibid. ,  p.  19.  5  Ibid. ,  p.  35. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  19.  6  JYachgelassene  Werke ,  II. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


21 


later  expositions  marks  the  change  to  an  en¬ 
tirely  new  view  on  Fichte’s  part — to  an  Eleatic 
conception  of  the  Absolute  as  a  motionless,  in¬ 
active  Unity.  But  this  interpretation  overlooks 
the  fact  that  Fichte  describes  knowing  in  the  ex¬ 
position  of  1801  and  thinking  (. Denken )  in  that  of 
1804  alike  in  terms  of  activity.  In  a  letter  to  Schel- 
ling,  dated  August  7,  1801,  he  says  that  being  is  not 
compression,  but  is  through  and  through  alertness 
(. Agilitat ),  pellucidity,  light.1  God  is  this  pure  be¬ 
ing.  He  is  the  inconceivable  real  ground  of  the 
separateness  of  individuals  and  the  ideal  bond  of 
all.2  He  is  inconceivable  in  himself,  and  we  can  only 
say  that  the  Absolute  is  the  Absolute.3  The  Science 
of  Knowledge  expounds  the  universal  consciousness 
of  the  whole  spiritual  world.  Every  individual  is 
the  rational  square  of  an  irrational  root,  and  the 
whole  spiritual  world  is  the  rational  square  of  an 
irrational  root  —  the  immanent  Light  or  God.4 
The  essence  of  philosophy  lies  in  conceiving  the 
inconceivable.5 

We  have  traced  through  the  preceding  works 
the  gradual  clarification  of  Fichte’s  thought  on 
the  nature  of  God  and  his  relation  to  the  world 
of  appearance.  It  becomes  evident  in  the  later 
utterances  that  the  absolute  Act  of  Knowing  or 

1  Leben  u.  Brief wechsel,  II.,  p.  345.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  344-5* 

8  To  Schelling,  January  15,  1802.  Leben  xi.  Briefzvcchsel ,  II., 

P-  367- 

4  Ibid,,  p.  345. 


5  Ibid.,  I.,  p.  181. 


22 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


the  Universal  Consciousness ,  which  is  identical  with 
the  absolute  I  of  the  earlier  Science  of  Knowledge , 
is  not  the  Divine  Being  in  his  fulness,  but  a  never- 
ceasing  expressio?i  of  his  Being.  God  manifests 
himself,  but  he  is  not  exhausted  in  his  manifesta¬ 
tions. 


3.  Fichte  s  Later  Views. 

In  his  writings  between  the  years  1806  and  1813 
Fichte  gives,  from  various  starting-points,  his  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  Divine  Nature  in  itself  and  in  its 
relation  to  the  phenomenal  world. 

In  the  Characteristics  of  the  Present  Age  (1806) 
he  says  that  Humanity  is  the  one,  outer,  forceful, 
living,  and  self-dependent  Existence  ( Daseyn )  of 
God,  or  the  “  one  utterance  and  outflow  of  the 
same.”  “  Humanity  is  an  eternal  ray,  that  divides 
itself  into  individuals,  not  in  very  truth,  but  only 
in  the  earthly  appearance.”  1  The  true  destiny  of 
humanity  is  to  return  to  God,  and  universal  his¬ 
tory  is  divided  into  five  epochs  which  mark  the  five 
great  stages  of  the  progress  of  humanity  towards 
its  goal.2  In  a  corresponding  manner,  Fichte  gives, 
in  the  Way  to  the  Blessed  Life  (1806),  the  five  pos¬ 
sible  ways  of  viewing  the  infinite.  These  mark 
the  stages  in  the  progress  of  the  individual  soul 
Godwards.3  The  first  and  lowest  is  when  the 
world  is  seen  through  the  outer  senses  and  this 

Werke,  VII.,  p.  188.  2 Ibid pp.  11  ff. 

3  Ibid.,  V.,  pp.  465  ff. 


1 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


23 


world  is  held  to  be  the  true  world.  In  the  second 
the  world  is  comprehended  as  a  law  of  order  and 
equality  existing  in  a  system  of  rational  beings. 

The  practical  reason  of  Kant  represents  this  view. 

The  third  view  is  that  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
higher  morality.  Here  the  highest  plane  of  being 
is  a  law  for  the  spirit,  but  a  creative  law  whose 
end  is  to  make  men  revelations  of  the  inner  divine 
Being.1  Here  the  truly  Real  is  the  Holy,  Good, 
and  Beautiful.  The  fourth  view  is  that  of  religion. 

This  is  the  clear  knowledge  that  the  Holy,  Good, 
and  Beautiful  are  the  manifestations  in  us  of  the 
inner  Being  of  God.2  It  is  seen  that  in  whatever 
the  holy  man  does,  lives,  and  loves,  God  appears 
in  his  own  immediate  forceful  Life.  The  fifth 
and  highest  view  is  the  standpoint  of  pure  knowl¬ 
edge.3  To  point  the  way  to  the  pure  knowledge  of 
the  one  Absolute  Being  which  is  complete  in  itself 
is  the  purpose  of  the  Way  to  the  Blessed  Life. 

The  Absolute  is  Being.4  The  fundamental  Being  x 

of  Life  is  an  unchangeable  intuition.  Being  neces¬ 
sarily  appears  as  “  existence,”  which  is,  hence,  the 
phenomenal  form  of  the  inner  essence  of  Being.5 
Existence  is  Life — the  absolute  concept  which 
breaks  itself  up  into  finite  /’ s.6  The  absolute  con¬ 
cept  appears  only  in  the  individual  consciousness.7 

1  Werke,  V.,  p.  469.  4  Ibid.,  p.  508  ;  II.,  p.  682. 

2 Ibid.,  p.  470.  5  Ibid.,  p.  510  ff. 

3  Ibid. ,  p.  472.  6  Nachgelassene  Werke ,  III.,  p.  36. 

7  Ibid. ,  p.  69  ff. 


24 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


The  absolute  concept  itself  is  the  appearance  of 
God  as  the  latter  comprehends  itself.1  This  self¬ 
comprehension  posits  life.2  Life  comes  to  con¬ 
sciousness  in  individuals  as  absolute  thinking 
( Denken ).3  This  appearance  is  the  accident  of 
which  God  is  the  substance.  The  self-intuition 
of  Being  in  its  own  manifestation  brings  forth,  as 
a  free  act,  a  process.  Through  this  process  the 
manifold  /’ s  arise.4  The  universal  and  absolute 
thought  brings  forth,  by  thinking,  a  community 
of  individuals.5  But  in  this  manifold  appearance 
existence  is  still  One  Spirit,  which  intuits  and  under¬ 
stands  itself  as  a  system  of  many.6  The  purpose 
of  the  infinite  manifoldness  of  existence  is  to  ex¬ 
press  Being  in  Becoming.7  This  process  of  expres¬ 
sion  is  eternal.  The  power  of  the  absolute  Life 
to  create  individuals  is  never  exhausted  in  the 
forms  of  individuality.  To  all  eternity  Being 
continues  to  be  broken  up  into  individuals.8 
Hence  the  ethical  purpose  in  the  manifestation  of 
the  Divine  Being  in  individuals  is  never  fully 
revealed.9  Perhaps,  in  the  Moral  Order,  one 
world-age  is  conditioned  by  another,  and  so  there 
takes  place  in  greater  purity  a  progressive  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  goal.  The  individuals  arise  through 

1  NachgelassenelVerke  I.,  p.  408.  5  Werke,  II.,  pp.  603,  608. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  412.  8  Nachgelassene  Werke,  p.  526. 

3  Werke,  II.,  pp.  608-10.  7  Werke,  II.,  p.  683. 

4  Nachgelassene  Werke ,  I.,p.  548.  8  Ibid.,  V.,  p.  530. 

9  Ibid.,  II.,  pp.  666,  667. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


25 


thinking,  but  God  does  not.  On  the  contrary, 
through  his  Being  thinking  first  arises.1  The  in¬ 
dividuals  are  but  pictures  of  the  Absolute.  Beyond 
his  appearance  God  exists  in  the  absolute  form  of 
Being.2 

The  reflection  or  splitting  up  of  the  Divine 
Being  brings  forth  free  and  self-dependent  F s. 
Freedom  is  the  root  of  existence  and  the  sole 
organic  point  of  unity  for  the  various  forms  of 
the  Absolute  Being.3  Through  freedom  the  in¬ 
dividual  rises  to  those  higher  stages  on  the  road 
to  union  with  the  Absolute  which  have  already 
been  mentioned.  To  become  one  with  God  the 
finite  individual  must  freely  deny  his  own  exist¬ 
ence,  and  then  he  sinks  in  God.4  The  inner  being 
of  an  individual  as  it  appears  in  his  actions  will 
have  value  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  the  appearance 
of  God  in  this  individual.5 

Fichte  had  repeatedly  said  that  the  Absolute-in- 
himself  was  the  inconceivable.  But  with  the  lapse 
of  years  his  religious  feelings  had  enlarged  and 
deepened,  and  while  in  the  Way  to  the  Blessed 
Life  the  highest  standpoint  is  still  that  of  knowl¬ 
edge  (Wissen),  this  offers  a  direct  relation  to  God 
in  the  form  of  an  intellectual  intuition  ( intellec - 
tuelle  Anschammg ),  an  experience  which  is  deeper 
than  conception  (. Begreifen ).  This  direct  relation- 

1  Nachgelassene  Werke ,  I.,  p.  563.  *tVerke,  V.,  p.  513. 

a  Ibid.  4  Ibid.,  pp.  517,  518. 


>< 


6  Ibid.,  p.  536. 


2 6  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


ship  is  love.  The  love  of  God  causes  Being  and  ex¬ 
istence,  God  and  man,  to  melt  and  flow  together.1 

Love  is  the  fountain  of  all  certainty  and  all 
truth  and  all  reality.  Love  is  higher  than  reason. 
It  furnishes  the  primal  element  for  the  creation 
of  the  world.2  In  reflection  that  has  become 
Divine  Love,  and  denied  itself  in  God  there  is 
attained  the  standpoint  of  knowledge.3  In  the 
beginning,  higher  than  all  time,  and  absolute 
creator  of  Time  is  Love,  and  the  Love  is  in  God, 
for  it  is  God’s  self-maintenance  of  himself  in 
existence.4 

“  In  so  far  as  man  is  the  love  of  God  he  is  and 
continues  to  be  God.”5  In  a  letter  to  Jacobi  (of 
May  8,  1806)  Fichte  says:  “Raise  thyself  by 
Love  above  the  concept,  then  by  so  doing  thou 
art  immediately  within  formless  and  pure  Being.”6 

Fichte  expresses  very  clearly  the  final  outcome 
of  his  thought  in  two  sonnets,7  from  which  we 
quote : 

“  The  perennial  One 
Lives  in  my  life  and  seeth  in  my  sight.” 

“  Naught  is  but  God — and  God  is  only  life  ! 

And  yet  thou  seest  and  I  see  with  thee, 

How  then  could  such  a  thing  as  seeing  be 
Were  it  not  a  knowing  of  God’s  own  Life  ? 

llVerke,  V.,  p.  540.  4  Ibid.,  p.  543. 

a  Ibid.,  p.  541.  6  Ibid.,  p.  543. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  542.  6  Leben  u.  Briefwechsel,  II.,  p.  179. 

7  Nachgelassene  Werke,  III.,  pp.  347-8. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


27 


‘How  gladly  to  His  would  I  my  life  resign  ! 

But  oh  !  how  find  it  ?  Whensoe’er  it  flow 
Into  my  knowing,  transformed  to  empty  show, 

’Tis  mixed  with  other  semblance,  in  this  hull  of  mine.’ 
’Tis  clear,  what  hath  the  hindrance  been. 

It  is  thyself!  Whate’er  can  die,  resign  ! 

And  in  thy  life  shall  God  live  evermore. 

Note  well  what  in  this  dying  shall  live  o’er, 

Then  shall  the  hull  as  naught  but  hull  be  seen, 

And  thou  shalt  see  unveiled  the  life  divine  !  ” 

4.  Conclusion. 

When  we  put  together  what  Fichte  said  at 
different  times  and  from  various  points  of  view 
his  doctrine  becomes  a  unity  and  his  thought 
exhibits  a  consistent  development.  He  always 
conceived  God  as  immanent  in  the  moral  universe 
— the  only  universe  which  he  recognized.  He 
consistently  held  that  the  human  mind  could  not 
conceive  God  in  his  transcendence.  But  he  did  not 
deny  that  transcendence,  and  indeed  in  his  later 
writings  he  emphasized  it  by  his  doctrine  of  the 
Absolute  Being.  While  in  his  innermost  nature 
he  is  beyond  the  reach  of  thought,  God  manifests 
himself  eternally  as  Active  Intelligence  or  Will, 
and  by  the  free  act  of  his  own  intelligence  man 
can  rise  to  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  God  and 
enter  into  union  with  him.  In  the  earlier  form 
of  the  Science  of  Knowledge  the  Absolute  I  is  the 
expression  of  God.  In  the  final  form  which 
his  philosophy  assumes  Fichte  emphasizes  the 


28 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


doctrine  that  God  is  more  than  the  Absolute  I. 
The  idea  of  God  is  more  fully  defined.  Beyond 
his  manifestation  of  himself  he  exists  as  Absolute 
Being.  He  alone  is.  But  this  Being  is  not  an 
abstract  motionless  One.  Fichte  says  again  and 
again  in  the  Way  to  the  Blessed  Life  that  the 
nature  of  Being  is  to  manifest  itself,  that  it  is  ever 
active,  ever  living  and  loving.  “  Being  and  Life 
are  one  and  the  same.”  “The  Divine  is  think¬ 
ing  and  living  in  one  organic  unity.”  Being  be¬ 
comes  conscious  of  itself  in  Existence  ( Daseyn ). 
The  universal  form  in  which  the  Divine  Essence 
appears  is  Knowing  ( Wissen ),  the  Concept ,  Free¬ 
dom ,  and  these  are  all  equivalent  expressions. 
Knowing  is  the  first  image  or  schema  of  the 
Divine  Being.1  We  have  not  yet  reached  self- 
consciousness.  But  free  Knowing  or  the  Concept 
miderstands  or  becomes  conscious  of  itself  in  Life , 
and  Life  appears  in  the  multiplicity  of  finite,  self- 
conscious  individuals.  Consciousness  in  these  is 
the  reflex  of  real  Being.2  We  humans  are  thus 
appearances ,  images 3  of  God’s  true  being.  In  us 
his  ceaselessly  outflowing,  living  Will  concentrates 

1  Werke ,  IV.,  pp.  386,  387,  etc.,  and  Nachgelassene  Werke ,  I., 
p.  413  ff. 

'Ibid.,  III.,  p.  35- 

3  There  are  thus  three  stages  in  the  process  of  God’s  imaging 
( Bilden )  or  schematizing  himself  :  (i)  Appearance  {Erscheimmg), 
Knowing  (Wissen),  or  the  Concept  which  is  Freedom  ;  (2)  Life 
or  Thinking  (Denken) ;  (3)  the  Self-understanding  of  Life  (Sich- 
verstehen),  i.e.,  the  individual  /’ s. 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


29 


itself  into  innumerable  centres  of  consciousness. 
But  all  individuals  are  enclosed  in  the  one  great 
unity  of  the  pure  Spirit.1  The  real  and  true 
appearance,  like  God,  whose  appearance  it  is,  is 
above  the  actual  ( Uberwirklich ).2 

Consciousness  involves  a  limit,  and  hence  is  a 
reflex  of  real  Being,  not  God  himself.  Deeper 
than  all  finite  life,  higher  than  all  conscious  thought, 
there  abides  at  the  heart  of  things  the  pure  super¬ 
conscious  Intelligence,  the  absolutely  realized  Will 
which  is  the  rest  of  absolute  motion,  the  fruition 
of  absolute,  self-centred  activity.  God  is  the  in¬ 
telligent  Will  that  is  ever  active  in  forming  itself 
into  finite  self-conscious  wills.  But  in  this  eternal 
manifestation  he  never  exists  in  his  fulness.  He 
is  beyond  the  limits  which  human  will  and  intelli¬ 
gence  involve.  In  himself  he  cannot  be  a  self- 
conscious  being  such  as  we  are,  for  he  transcends 
the  limitations  and  eternally  overcomes  the  op¬ 
positions  through  which  in  us  self-consciousness 
arises.  But  he  is  accessible  to  us  as  the  goal  of  our 
free  striving .  In  the  immediacy  of  ethical  feeling 
or  love,  we  penetrate,  by  way  of  that  self-renuncia¬ 
tion  which  is  the  realization  of  freedom,  the  shell 
of  outward  conscious  existence  and  touch  the 
Divine  Being  himself.  For  this  Divine  Being  is 
above ,  not  below,  our  conscious  life.  God  remains 
in  the  last  period  of  Fichte’s  thought  the  ethical 
Absolute,  the  source  and  the  end  of  the  moral  life. 

1  Werke,  I.,  p.  416.  2  Nachgelassene  Werke,  I.,  p.  423. 


30 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


The  free  ethical  will  still  is,  for  him,  the  key  to  our 
own  existence.  God  is  still  held  up  as  the  goal  of 
the  active  life.  But  at  this  period  Fichte  empha¬ 
sizes  the  doctrine  that  the  ethical  Absolute  is  not 
a  mere  moral  ideal,  “a  far-off  Divine  Event,”  but 
now  and  ever  is  in  all  its  fulness,  and  can  be 
experienced  directly  by  him  who  wills  to,  in  the 
ethically  determined  feeling  or  intuition  of  love. 

Fichte  does  not  theoretically  deduce  the  finite  I 
from  the  Absolute.  Nor  is  there  on  the  purely 
theoretical  side  of  his  philosophy  any  path  that 
leads  inevitably  from  the  finite  I  to  God.  The  I 
is  active  through  impulse  (Tried)  and  against  an 
obstacle  or  limit  (. Anstoss ).  Fichte  makes  a  show 
of  deducing  the  not-I  from  the  /,  but  what  he 
really  does  is,  by  an  analysis  of  the  activity 
of  the  /,  to  reveal  the  not-I  as  the  indispensa¬ 
ble  condition  of  this  activity.  Theoretically, 
God  is  simply  the  hypostatized  abstraction  of 
cognition  in  general.  It  is  in  the  practical  or  ethi¬ 
cal  life  that  Fichte  finds  the  point  of  closest  con¬ 
tact  and  union  of  the  finite  I  with  the  Absolute. 
The  ultimate  reason  for  the  existence  of  a  limit  to 
the  I  is  the  development  of  free  ethical  activity 
by  the  finite  self.  Through  the  action  of  freedom 
the  finite  /  strives  to  overcome  this  limit,  and 
finally,  having  through  opposition  found  its  own 
vocation,  it  transcends  the  limit  and  becomes  one 
with  God.  The  finite  self  has  then  discovered, 
beneath  the  antitheses  of  itself  and  its  world,  the 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


31 


unifying  principle  of  the  Divine  Life.  The  con¬ 
sciousness  of  this  Divine  Life,  interpenetrating  the 
lives  of  finite  selves,  grows  more  inclusive  and 
pervading  with  the  growth  of  Fichte’s  thought. 
He  asserts  in  many  of  his  earlier  writings  the  abso¬ 
lute  power  of  man  as  a  free  being  to  raise  himself 
to  God,  but  later  he  assumes  the  powerlessness  of 
the  human  will  to  unite  with  God  without  the  aid 
and  presence  of  the  Divine  Will.  “  Through  him¬ 
self  man  can  do  nothing.  He  can  not  make  him¬ 
self  moral,  but  he  must  wait  until  the  divine 
image  breaks  forth  in  him.” 1  Fichte  never  specifi¬ 
cally  faces  the  problem  of  evil  and  offers  no  ex¬ 
planation  of  its  place  in  his  system. 

In  the  system  Being  and  Becoming  are  perhaps 
not  fully  reconciled.  But  can  they  ever  be  wholly 
reconciled  by  other  than  the  way  of  poetic  meta¬ 
phor  ?  It  is  my  opinion  that  no  profounder  contri¬ 
bution  to  the  solution  of  this  eternal  problem,  and 
none  that  meets  better  the  ethical  demands  of  hu¬ 
man  nature,  has  been  made  than  by  Fichte  in  his 
doctrine  that  the  ceaseless  activity  of  finite  wills, 
considered  as  a  system,  is  the  manifestation  in  the 
world  of  time  and  space  of  the  infinite  Life  of 
God,  and  that  in  their  spontaneous,  self-determined 
activity  the  world-system  of  finite  /’ s  expresses 
and  realizes,  each  one  fragmentarily  but  not  the 
less  truly  and  unceasingly,  the  completion  and 
perfection  of  the  Absolute  Life. 

1  Nachgelassene  Werke,  III.,  pp.  45,  114,  etc. 


32 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


Fichte  prepared  the  way  for  Hegel’s  Logic  by 
his  analysis  of  the  dialectic  movement  of  self-con¬ 
sciousness  and  for  the  Phenomenology  of  the 
Spirit  by  his  doctrine  of  the  five  stages  of  indi¬ 
vidual  and  racial  consciousness.  But  in  his  own 
conception  of  the  movement  of  self-consciousness 
he  failed  to  get  beyond  the  Spinozistic  principle 
that  all  determination  is  limitation,  and  therefore 
involves  finitude.  He  cannot  conceive  any  self- 
consciousness  as  arising  without  an  external  limit 
or  check  which  the  I  strikes  against  and  recoils 
from,  and  so  kindles  into  self-consciousness.  He 
ceaselessly  pursues  the  limit  and  tries  to  get  it 
into  his  Absolute.  But  he  only  succeeds  in  so 
doing  by  expelling  self-consciousness  from  the 
Absolute.  He  cannot  avoid  doing  this,  for  there 
clings  to  his  thinking  the  ancient  prejudice  of  the 
abstract  reason  that  the  Absolute  and  Infinite 
must  be  abstract  and  indeterminate  if  it  is  to  be 
all-inclusive  and  self-sufficient,  and  of  course  self- 
consciousness  must  be  determinate.  Again  and 
again,  in  trying  to  conceive  the  unity  of  God  in 
relation  to  the  manifoldness  of  finite /’s,  Fichte 
speaks  of  the  Absolute  as  going  out  of  itself  into 
the  finite  individuals  in  order  to  return  into  its 
own  being.  In  his  later  writings,  indeed,  he  em¬ 
phasizes  the  repose  of  the  Absolute  or  God  in  his 
own  nature.  But  the  return  of  the  Divine  Being 
from  the  multiplicity  of  his  finite  manifestations  is 
no  true  return,  and  has  no  unity  unless  there  is  in 


FICHTE’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


33 


God  a  self-consciousness  which  knows  and  feels 
itself  as  such  in  relation  to  finite  individuals.  The 
ceaseless  play  of  the  Absolute  Intelligence  in  its 
outgoing  into  the  universe  of  free  men  is  meaning¬ 
less,  and  the  existence  of  such  a  universe  is  mean¬ 
ingless,  too,  unless  there  is  in  God  an  immediate 
and  absolute  consciousness  of  himself  as  a  unity 
in  relation  to  the  manifold  forms  of  his  manifesta¬ 
tion.  Fichte’s  own  strong  sense  of  the  ethical 
significance  of  the  universe  of  moral  selves  and 
his  conception  of  love  as  the  meeting-point  of 
man  and  God  involve  necessarily  the  self-conscious¬ 
ness  of  God  in  himself.  There  is  no  real  unity  in 
the  universe  outside  the  unity  of  the  Divine  Con¬ 
sciousness.  Fichte  failed  to  see  that  self-conscious¬ 
ness  is  essentially  a  unity  that  differentiates  itself, 
but  does  not  lose  itself  in  these  differences.  On 
the  contrary,  it  maintains  and  expresses  in  differ¬ 
ences,  in  a  multiplicity  of  finite  selves,  the  con¬ 
crete  fulness  of  its  own  life.  This  is  precisely  the 
sort  of  unity  that  Fichte  has  in  mind  in  his  later 
writings,  but  he  does  not  see'  clearly  in  what  way 
it  is  shadowed  forth  in  consciousness.  It  is  true 
that  this  unity  is  not  felt  by  ourselves  in  all  its 
fulness.  It  remains  an  ideal,  but  an  ideal  which 
is  implicated  in  every  fibre  of  the  actual  life  of  the 
human  self. 

From  the  whole  of  Fichte’s  writings  there  stands 
out  clearly  the  firm,  unfaltering  conviction  that 
outside  the  world  of  spirits  there  is  nothing  real. 


34 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


His  ethical  idealism  develops  into  a  mysticism 
which  yet  retains  the  ethical  vigor  and  elevation 
that  breathed  through  his  earlier  utterances.  His 
unio  mystica  is  the  immanent  ideal  of  the  ethical 
life.  The  universe  is  a  system  of  moral  beings 
whose  vocation  is  to  express  in  individual  form 
the  transcendent  Divine  Life  which  is  the  im¬ 
manent  process  of  their  own  realization  of  blessed¬ 
ness.  In  his  ethical  idealism  Fichte  is  the  true 
successor  of  Kant.  In  his  grasp  on  the  imma¬ 
nency  of  the  Divine  Life  in  the  ethical  striving  of 
humanity  he  goes  beyond  his  master.  In  his 
union  of  moralism  and  mysticism  Fichte  has  made 
a  permanent  contribution  to  the  philosophy  of  re¬ 
ligion,  and  his  thought  will  live  on  in  the  meta¬ 
physics  of  the  future. 


CHAPTER  II. 


hegel’s  conception  of  god. 

i.  Introductory  General  Notions . 

Hegel’s  Philosophy  of  Religion  begins  with  the 
thought  of  God,  which  is  the  result,  he  says,  of 
the  other  parts  of  his  philosophy.  But  God  is  at 
the  same  time  the  Prius  that  eternally  manifests 
itself.  He  is  the  result  only  in  the  sense  of  being 
the  goal  of  philosophy.  There  are  three  stages  in 
the  movement  of  philosophy  towards  truth  :  first, 
the  logical,  or  stage  of  pure  thinking ;  second, 
nature;  third,  finite  spirit.  From  finite  spirit  we 
move  upward  to  God,  who  is  the  last  result  of 
philosophy.  “  The  result  is  the  absolute  truth.” 
“  The  last  becomes  the  first.”  1 

God  is  thus  at  once  the  presupposition  and  the 
goal  of  all  Hegel’s  thinking.  “A  reason-derived 
knowledge  of  God  is  the  highest  problem  of 
philosophy.”  2  God  is  for  him  the  self-condition¬ 
ing,  self-centred  totality  of  all  that  is,  i. e. ,  the 
ultimate  unity.  But  philosophy  must  not  remain 

1  Werke,  XI.,  p.  48.  N.B. — The  references  are  to  the  Philoso¬ 
phic  der  Religion  in  the  first  edition  (Berlin,  1883-4). 

2  Wallace,  The  Logic  of  Hegel,  p.  73< 


36  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


standing  with  the  bare  assertion  that  God  is  the 
ultimate  unity.  It  must  specify  ( bestimmen )  this 
unity  and  exhibit  it  as  a  concrete  system  of  differ¬ 
ences.  “  Philosophy  knows  God  essentially  as 
concrete,  spiritual,  real  universality,  that  is  not 
grudging  but  communicates  himself.”1  The  dif¬ 
ferent  parts  of  Hegel’s  system  are  expositions  of 
different  aspects  of  God’s  existence.  Taken  to¬ 
gether,  they  exhibit  the  development  in  that  pro¬ 
cess  of  concretion  or  specification  ( Bestimmung ) 
which  it  is  the  task  of  philosophy  to  show  forth, 
as  Hegel  is  always  telling  us. 

Logic,  the  first  part  of  the  philosophy,  is  a 
criticism  of  the  categories  by  which  men  interpret 
reality.2  Truth,  for  Hegel,  is  not  the  correspon¬ 
dence  of  thought  with  external  reality.  He  has 
no  interest  in,  and  would  condemn  as  utterly 
fruitless,  the  attempt  to  determine  the  objective 
validity  of  thought.  Truth  for  him  is  “  the  agree¬ 
ment  of  a  thought-content  with  itself,”3  i.e.,  self- 
consistency.  This  definition  must  constantly  be 
borne  in  mind,  inasmuch  as  the  entire  work  of  the 
Logic  consists  in  passing  in  review  the  ascending 
series  of  categories  in  the  light  of  which  men  in¬ 
terpret  reality.  Each  succeeding  category  is  found 
inadequate,  because  it  does  not  square  at  all 
points  with  the  idea  of  self-consistency.  A  given 
form  of  conceiving  reality  can  define  itself  only  in 

1  Werke ,  XII.,  pp.  287,  447. 

2  Wallace,  op.  cit .,  pp.  30-59.  3  Ibid .,  p.  52. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


3/ 


relation  to  other  forms  which  differ  from  it.  The 
full  development  of  their  differences  seem  to  set 
these  forms  of  thought  in  mutual  contradiction ; 
but,  on  further  consideration,  they  turn  out  to  be 
complementary  aspects  of  a  more  comprehensive 
unity  of  thought.  For  example,  the  Notion  of 
Being  is  defined  by  reference  to  its  opposite — 
Becoming.  These  notions  seem  absolutely  in¬ 
compatible.  But  in  determinate  Being,  i.e .,  in 
definite  existence,  we  have  Being  which  has  come 
to  be  somewhat  and  is  becoming  something  else. 
Under  the  three  heads  of  “Being,”  “Essence,” 
and  “Notion  ”  the  inevitable  movement  of  thought 
is  traced  from  the  most  abstract  to  the  most  con¬ 
crete  conception  of  things.  Each  category  bears 
within  itself  the  seeds  of  its  own  decay,  and  in  the 
dialectic  process,  which  pervades  the  life  of 
thought  as  well  as  the  life  of  nature,  it  merges 
itself  into  a  more  comprehensive  category.  When 
the  ultimate  category  of  the  “  Notion  ”  is  reached, 
into  it  all  the  lower  categories  are  received,  and  by 
it  they  are  fulfilled.  The  Logic  is  an  immanent 
criticism  of  categories.1 

But  these  categories  are  not  to  be,  for  a  mo¬ 
ment,  conceived  as  hanging  in  the  air  or  merely 
going  on  in  the  philosopher’s  head.  They  reflect 
in  the  mirror  of  pure  thought  the  true  nature  of 
the  objective  world.  If  all  the  categories  up  to 
the  final  Idea  of  the  Notion  have  to  deny  them- 

1  A.  Seth,  Hegelianism  and  Personality,  p.  91. 


38  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


selves  and  be  absorbed  by  their  own  children  this 
is  so  precisely  because  in  the  world  of  actuality 
everything  finite  is  passing  away,  is  suffering  death 
and  rebirth  in  a  higher  form.  The  Idea  which  is 
the  end  of  the  Notion  s  life  does  not  so  pass  away. 
It  was  from  the  beginning ;  without  the  Idea  was 
not  anything  made  that  was  made.  The  Hegelian 
Logic  aims  to  reflect  the  ebb  and  flow  of  cosmic 
and  human  evolution — to  paint  in  the  gray  colors 
of  thought’s  conceptions  all  the  struggle  and  the 
passion  of  historic  humanity. 

Inasmuch  as  men  have  always  used  the  highest 
categories  of  their  thinking  to  interpret  and  give 
unity  to  their  experience,  logic  may  be  regarded 
as  the  history  of  the  different  thought-forms  in 
which  men  have  given  expression  to  their  concep¬ 
tions  of  that  ultimate  reality  which  supplies  the 
unity  of  experience,  i.e. ,  God.  “  Logic  is  metaphys¬ 
ical  theology,  which  considers  the  evolution  of 
the  idea  of  God  in  the  ether  of  pure  thought.”1 
Hegel’s  philosophy  is  preeminently  a  philosophy 
based  on  experience.  But  experience  means  for 
him  chiefly  the  experience  of  the  race  in  thinking 
out  the  world  problem.  He  seeks  his  material 
chiefly  in  the  history  of  human  thought.  Cate¬ 
gories  are  objective  thoughts,2  i.e.,  thoughts  re¬ 
garded  as  objectively  true,  as  universally  valid. 
So  Hegel  says:  “Logic  .  .  .  therefore  coincides 
with  Metaphysics,  the  science  of  things  set  and 

1  Werki ?,  XII.,  p.  366.  2  Wallace,  op.  cit.}  p.  45. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


39 


held  in  thoughts — thought  accredited  able  to 
express  the  essential  reality  of  things.”  1 

The  Logic  is  a  genetic  history  of  Metaphysics. 
Its  work  is  to  bring  to  light  the  ground  thoughts 
of  metaphysics,  and  to  show  their  evolution.  It 
has  been  said,  “There  is  no  evolution  possible  of 
a  fact  from  a  conception.” 2  There  is  possible, 
however,  an  evolution  in  the  conception  of  a  fact. 
The  Hegelian  Logic  is,  I  take  it,  the  evolution  of 
the  conceptions  of  isolated  facts  into  their  ulti¬ 
mate  implication — the  conception  of  God.  Hegel 
thinks  that  the  conception  of  God  is  attained  in 
logical  science  as  the  Absolute  Idea — the  Notion 
or  Totality  of  Being  comprehending  itself.  He 
says  that  the  Logic  sets  forth  the  self-movement 
of  the  Absolute  Idea  as  the  original  Word  or  Self- 
expression.  He  believes  that  in  the  Logic  he  is 
tracing  the  actual  course  of  God’s  manifestation 
of  himself  through  human  thought  about  him. 
Hegel  has  no  doubt  that  he  has  discovered,  and 
is  setting  forth,  the  process  by  which  the  Abso¬ 
lute  manifests  itself  in  the  appearances  of  our 
time  and  space  world.  The  absolute  method  which 
is  his  method  gets  at  the  very  heart  of  the  object, 
he  would  say.  The  absolute  method,  being  the 
immanent  principle  and  soul  of  its  object,  develops 
the  qualities  of  that  object  out  of  the  object  itself. 
This  method  Hegel  unhesitatingly  applied  to  the 
ultimate  Object.  The  dialectic  of  thought  is  for 
1  Wallace,  op.  cit.,  p.  45.  2  Seth,  op.  cit.,  p.  125. 


40 


MOD.ERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


* 


v 


4 


him  the  dialectic  of  Being.  The  final  category  is 
the  idea  of  God  regarded  in  the  light  of  pure 
thought.  It  is  the  Notion  ( Begriff ),  or  End. 
Hegel’s  “  Notion  ”  corresponds  to  the  Final  Cause 
of  Aristotle,  in  which  are  included  both  the  effi¬ 
cient  and  the  formal  cause.  “  In  the  End  the 
Notion  has  entered  on  free  existence  and  has  a 
being  of  its  own  by  means  of  the  negation  of  im¬ 
mediate  objectivity.”  1  The  category  of  End  takes 
up  into  itself  mechanism  and  chemism  as  subordi¬ 
nate  categories.  The  End  is  not  merely  blind 
causation  like  the  efficient  cause.2  In  having  a 
being  of  its  own,  End  has  properly  subjectivity 
and  is  really  self-consciousness  abstractly  consid¬ 
ered.  As  subjective,  End  implies  a  matter  exter¬ 
nal  to  itself  on  which  it  works.  We  have  so  far 
only  external  design.  This  is  superseded  in  the 
notion  of  inner  design,  of  reason  immanent  in  the 
world.3  The  true  End  is  the  unity  of  the  subjec¬ 
tive  and  objective.4  The  End  exists  and  is  active 
in  the  world.  It  constitutes  the  world.  Individ¬ 
ual  existences  have  their  being  only  in  the  univer¬ 
sal  End.  “  The  Good,  the  absolutely  Good  is 
eternally  accomplishing  itself  in  the  world.”  5  The 
End  as  actual  is  the  Idea.  “  The  Idea  may  be 
called  Reason  (and  this  is  the  proper  philosophi¬ 
cal  significance  of  ‘reason’),  subject-object,  the 
unity  of  the  ideal  and  the  real,  of  the  finite  and 

1  Wallace,  op.  cit.,  p.  343.  2  Ibid. ,  p.  344. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  345.  4  Ibid. ,  p.  351.  5  Ibid. ,  p.  352. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


41 


the  infinite,  of-  soul  and  body,”1  etc.  The  Idea 
is  a  process  which  is  ever  splitting  itself  into  dif¬ 
ferences,  but  always  preserves  its  relation  to  self. 
Hegel  seeks  to  throw  forth  on  the  philosophical 
screen  a  vivid  picture  of  the  Absolute  at  work, 
weaving  a  world  of  men  and  things  in  the  “  loom 
of  time.”  The  first  form  of  the  Idea  is  life.  Life 
is  the  Idea  existing  in  the  world  as  external  and 
immediately  given.  From  life  we  rise  to  Cogni¬ 
tion.  Here  the  subjective  Idea  stands  over  against 
the  objective  world  that  is  given.  In  the  process 
of  Cognition2  the  subjective  Idea  starts  out  with 
faith  in  the  rationality  of  the  objective  world  and 
seeks  to  know  it,  i.e,,  to  realize  its  own  unity  with 
the  objective.  But  the  subjective  Idea  does  not 
merely  seek  to  know  the  objective  world.  It  also 
seeks  to  realize  its  own  ideals  in  the  objective 
world.3  This  is  the  effort  of  will  toward  the 
Good.  The  subjective  never  quite  succeeds  in 
bending  the  objective  to  its  purposes,  and  it  is 
forced  to  fall  back  on  the  faith  “  that  the  good  is 
radically  and  really  achieved  in  the  world.”4 
This  faith  is  the  speculative  or  absolute  Idea.  Its 
object  is  the  “Idea  as  such,”5  and  for  it  the  ob¬ 
jective  is  Idea.  The  Absolute  Idea  is  the  self- 
identity  which  contains  the  whole  system  of  con¬ 
crete  things  and  persons  as  integral  parts  of  itself. 

*  Wallace,  op.  cit.,  p.  355.  3  Ibid. ,  p.  371. 

2  Ibid. ,  p.  363.  4  Ibid.,  p.  373. 

5  Ibid. 


42 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


It  is  the  absolutely  Good  and  absolutely  True.  It 
is  not  a  mere  abstract  universal,  but  is  rather  the 
all-embracing,  self-centred  unity  of  things.  The 
Universal  realizes  itself  by  determining  itself  to 
be  the  Absolute  Individual,  the  Absolute  Subject. 
Every  step  that  the  Absolute  Idea  takes  in  going 
beyond  itself  is  at  the  same  time  a  reflection  into 
itself,  an  enrichment  of  self.  The  greater  exten¬ 
sion  brings  the  higher  intension.  The  highest, 
most  acute  point  in  the  development  is  pure  Per¬ 
sonality,  or  absolute  Subjectivity.  This,  through 
the  completion  of  the  absolute  dialectic  which  is 
its  own  nature  in  expression,  grasps  and  holds  all 
in  itself,  and  is  conscious  of  its  own  unity  amidst 
all  the  changing  details  of  its  world.  We  have 
reached  the  notion  of  God.  Hegel  uses  the  same 
phrase,  “  the  Absolute  Idea,”  to  represent  both 
our  thought  and  the  object  of  that  thought.  This 
double  use  has  led  to  the  charge  that  Hegel  at¬ 
tempted  to  construct  the  real  world  out  of  abstract 
thought.  The  double  use  is  in  a  measure  justifi¬ 
able,  since  the  Absolute  Idea  as  the  ultimate 
existence  is  really  the  divine  self-consciousness. 
From  Hegel’s  point  of  view,  it  is  the  divine  in  us 
that  enables  us  to  grasp  the  Idea.  Hegel  ana¬ 
lyzes  the  notion  of  self-consciousness  and  puts  it 
forward  with  courageous  anthropomorphism  as 
the  ultimate  explanation  of  the  universe.1  He 
admits  no  dualism  in  the  realm  of  consciousness. 

1  See  Stirling,  The  Secret  of  Hegel,  I.,  p.  239. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


43 


Underneath  his  double  use  of  the  word  “Idea” 
lies  the  assumption  that  thought  can  fathom  the 
depths  of  the  divine  activity  in  the  world.  Taken 
by  itself  this  phraseology  would  support  the  view 
that  God  has  no  existence  outside  the  process  of 
human  thought,  and  that  he  reaches  self-conscious¬ 
ness  only  in  the  highest  forms  of  human  conscious¬ 
ness.  We  shall  discuss  later  in  what  sense  this 
is  true  of  Hegel’s  thought. 

But  the  Idea  is  the  reverse  of  abstract  thought. 
It  is  the  most  concrete  reality.  It  is  the  rAos. 
“  As  the  beginning  was  the  universal,  so  the  re¬ 
sult  is  the  individual  concrete  subject.”  “The 
universal  is  only  a  moment  in  the  Notion.”  The 
concrete  Idea  is  not  an  abstraction.  It  is  rather 
the  complete  reality.  It  is  this  individual  and 
comprehensive  character  of  the  Absolute  Idea 
which  enables  us  to  see  that  it  is  much  more  than 
mere  thought.  The  Idea  takes  up  into  itself  all 
the  wealth  of  the  subjective  and  the  objective 
worlds.  It  holds  together  in  one  unity  all  the 
contradictions  of  human  thought  and  passion. 
The  Absolute  Idea  is  not  less  but  more  than  the 
rich  and  thronging  world  of  human  experience. 
It  is  all  this  because  it  is  the  one  Absolute  Indi¬ 
vidual.  To  forget  this  is  to  overlook  what  lies  at 
the  heart  of  Hegel’s  thinking. 

Until  the  Idea  is  reached  in  the  Logic ,  we  have 
untrue  categories.  The  Idea  alone  is  true,  i. e. , 
adequate  to  the  reality,  because  itself  the  most 


44 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


concrete  reality.  It  is  the  unity  of  thinking  and 
being,  in  which  both  are  not  merged  in  a  higher 
existence,  but  thinking  is  regarded  as  the  highest 
form  of  being,  embracing  all  lower  forms.  The 
Idea  is  the  realized  Notion  ( Begriff ).  The  real¬ 
ized  Notion  is  the  complete  individual.  “The 
Notion  is  not  merely  soul,  but  rather  free  sub¬ 
jective  Notion  that  exists  for  itself  and  there¬ 
fore  has  personality — the  practical  objective  No¬ 
tion,  determined  for  itself,  that  as  person  is  im¬ 
penetrable  atomic  subjectivity — that  is  equally 
not  exclusive  Individuality,  but  rather  is  for 
itself  Universality  and  Knowledge,  and  in  its 
Other  has  its  own  objectivity  for  object.”1  The 
highest  point  reached  by  the  dialectic  method  is 
the  richest  and  most  concrete.  It  includes  in  itself 
all  the  other  stages  of  the  dialectic  movement, 
and  thus  becomes  pure  subjectivity  or  person¬ 
ality. 

In  the  Logic ,  the  Philosophy  of  Nature ,  and  the 
Philosophy  of  Spirit  are  presented  the  three  stages 
of  the  dialectic  movement  of  Hegel’s  philosophy. 
The  Logic  lays  the  groundwork  in  pure  thought. 
The  other  works  fill  in  the  details.  In  the  final 
stage  we  reach  absolute  personality  or  absolute 
spirit,  which  is  the  most  concrete  fact,  for  it  in¬ 
cludes  all  the  other  facts.  The  Absolute  Spirit 
is  the  Whole  and  the  True.  It  is  the  ultimate 

1  Werke ,  V.,p.  318.  N.  B. — The  references  are  to  the  Logik, 
in  the  second  edition  (Berlin,  1841). 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


45 


being  upon  which  all  finite  being  depends  for  its 
existence. 

It  has  been  thought  that  Hegel,  in  making  a 
passage  from  the  Absolute  Idea  of  the  Logic  to 
nature,  attempted  to  construct  the  real  world  out 
of  abstract  thought.  It  seems  to  me  that  what 
he  really  tries  to  do  is  to  preserve  the  absolute 
coherence  of  his  system,  by  showing  that  the  in¬ 
ner  necessity  of  the  Idea  demands  that  the  Idea 
be  discovered  in  nature.  This  was  a  presupposi¬ 
tion  of  the  dialectic  method.  If  the  latter,  in 
very  truth,  reflects  reality,  then  the  movement  of 
thought  must  be  shown  to  repeat  itself  in  concrete 
form  in  the  world  of  nature.  If  nature  be  not  an 
irreducible  and  wholly  refractory  element  in  the 
totality  of  the  Divine  Idea,  then  it  must  be  shown 
how  the  Idea  becomes  nature.  If  nature  were  not 
the  free,  because  self-determined,  expression  of 
the  Idea,  then  from  nature  we  should  never  be 
able  to  get  back  to  the  unity  and  repose  of  the 
Divine  Idea  in  the  perfection  of  its  wholeness. 
Nature  would  be  an  unreconciled  factor  in  the 
universe.  So  the  transition  from  Logic  to  Nature 
is  essential,  not  only  to  the  dialectic  movement  of 
the  philosopher’s  thought,  but  to  the  unity  of  the 
Absolute  Idea  in  the  eternity  of  its  movement. 
The  starting-point  for  interpreting  the  natural 
world  is  the  Idea  as  end,  concrete  totality,1  sub¬ 
jectivity  which  includes  objectivity.  In  its  appli- 

1  Wallace,  op.  cit.,  p.  378. 


4 6  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


V 


-V 


y 


x 


cation  to  the  spheres  of  nature  and  spirit  the  Idea 
seems  to  receive  more  concrete  determinations 
than  it  receives  in  the  Logic.  Nevertheless  the 
Idea  in  its  most  concrete  form  as  Absolute  Spirit 
has  been  the  presupposition  throughout.  In  the 
Philosophy  of  Religion ,  God  appears  as  spirit,  and 
nature  is  his  self-externalization.  Although  Hegel 
does  not  construct  the  world  out  of  abstract 
thought,  he  does  deprive  it  of  independent  exist¬ 
ence.  It  is  but  an  aspect  of  the  life  of  the  Abso¬ 
lute  Spirit.  This  brings  us  to  the  consideration 
of  the  nature  of  God  as  set  forth  in  the  Philosophy 
of  Religion. 

2.  The  Full  Expression  of  Hegel s  Conception  of 
God  in  the  “  Philosophy  of  Religion." 

Hegel  criticises  the  theology  of  the  Enlighten¬ 
ment  ( Aufklcirnng )  very  sharply,  on  the  ground 
that  it  empties  the  thought  of  God  of  all  content 
and  makes  him  a  mere  unknown  being  beyond 
the  world.1  The  task  of  philosophy,  he  says,  is  to 
know  God.  “  Philosophy  has  the  end  to  know  the 
truth,  to  know  God,  for  he  is  absolute  truth,  and 
in  contrast  to  God  and  his  explication,  nothing 
else  is  worth  the  trouble  of  knowing.”  2  It  knows 
“God  essentially  as  concrete,  spiritual,  real  Uni¬ 
versality.”  3 

The  Enlightenment  does  not  get  beyond  the  ab- 
1  Werkc,  XII.,  pp.  280-1.  'Ibid.,  p.  287.  3  Ibid. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


47 


stract  categories  of  the  understanding  {Ver stand). 
The  understanding  makes  distinctions,  such  as 
finite  and  infinite,  absolute  and  relative,  and  then 
lets  these  distinctions  harden  into  oppositions.  He 
criticises  Jacobi’s  opposition  of  Cognition  ( Erken - 
nen ),  as  discursive  and  finite,  to  the  immediate 
knowledge  ( unmittelbare  Wissen)  of  God.  Imme¬ 
diate  knowledge  tells  us  only  that  God  is,  not 
what  he  is.1  But  if  God  is  not  an  empty  Being 
beyond  the  stars,  he  must  be  present  in  the  com¬ 
munion  of  human  spirits,  and,  in  his  relation  to 
these,  he  is  the  One  Spirit  who  pervades  reality 
and  thought.  Hence  there  can  be  no  final  separa¬ 
tion  between  our  immediate  consciousness  of  him 
and  our  mediated  knowledge  of  reality.2  The 
oppositions  of  mediated  thought  are  overcome 
from  the  standpoint  of  reason  (Vernunft).8  When 
we  look  with  the  eye  of  reason  we  perceive  that 
the  infinite  includes  the  finite.  God  is  the  Absolute 
Idea,  a  circle  that  returns  upon  itself,  not  a  straight 
line  projected  indefinitely.  He  contains  the  world 
of  nature  and  finite  spirits  as  differences  within 
himself.  God  is  to  be  conceived  as  the  unity  of  all 
that  is.  He  is  the  universe,  the  “  concrete  totality.” 
God  is  the  absolutely  necessary  being  in  relation 
to  whom  contingent  things  have  no  being. 

The  nature  of  this  being  must  be  further  deter¬ 
mined.  To  say  simply  that  God  is  the  identity 
of  all  that  is,  is  to  make  him  a  mere  universal,  a 

1  Werke,  XI.,  p.  45.  2  Ibid.,  p.  48.  3 Ibid.,  pp.  102-57. 


48  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


substance.1  We  must  not  rest  satisfied  with  a  bare 
identity.  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  define  God 
in  his  objectivity  or  universality.  To  say  with 
Schleiermacher  that  God  is  known  immediately  in 
feeling  is  true  but  trivial.2  This  immediate  con¬ 
sciousness  of  God  must  be  mediated.  To  say  that 
he  is  known  only  in  feeling  is  to  reduce  him  to  a 
mere  subjective  experience  of  the  empirical  indi¬ 
vidual.  When  the  empirical  self  has  the  higher 
religious  feelings  of  repentance,  sorrow,  thankful¬ 
ness,  and,  finally,  love,  it  reaches  the  consciousness 
of  identity  with  the  universal.3  But  this  progress 
of  feeling  towards  universality  is  produced  not  by 
feeling  itself,  but  by  the  rationality  of  its  content.4 
Feeling  in  itself  is  mere  particularity.  It  is  the 
private  and  transient  state  of  the  mere  em¬ 
pirical  self.4  From  it  no  definition  of  God  can  be 
reached. 

With  a  world  of  concrete  differences  on  his 
hands,  with  finite  nature  and  finite  spirits  before 
him,  ITegel  seeks  for  a  definition  of  the  Absolute 
which  will  allow  it  to  take  up  all  these  differences 
into  itself  and  still' maintain  its  own  unity.  He 
finds  the  principle  he  seeks  in  self-consciousness  or 
spirit.  All  things  become  moments  of  the  Divine 
Self-consciousness,  constituent  elements  of  the 
Absolute  Spirit.  “  God  is  spirit,  the  absolute  spirit, 
the  eternal,  simple  essential  spirit  that  exists  with 

1  Werke,  XI.,  pp.  53,  56,  etc.  3  Ibid.,  p.  125  ff. 

3  Ibid. ,  p.  1 1 5.  4  Ibid. ,  p.  133. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


49 


itself.”  “  It  belongs  to  God  to  distinguish  himself 
from  himself,  to  be  object  to  himself,  but  in  this 
distinction  to  be  absolutely  identical  with  himself 
— Spirit.”  1  Spirit  is  spirit  only  as  manifesting 
itself.  “  Spirit  that  does  not  appear  is  not.” 2  “God 
is  a  living  God  who  is  real  and  active.”  3  “A  God 
who  does  not  manifest  himself  is  an  abstraction.”  4 
It  is  the  very  nature  of  God  to  manifest  himself.5 
The  finite  worlds  of  nature  and  spirit  are  manifes¬ 
tations  of  him,6  and  he  is  the  concrete  totality  of 
these  manifestations.7  God  is  the  beginning  and 
the  end  of  the  world-process.  The  logical  Idea  is 
the  potential  being  of  God,  the  abysmal  nature 
from  which  all  things  proceed.  But  the  primal 
ground  of  things  never  for  an  instant  remains  a 
dark  abyss.  From  it  eternally  proceeds  a  world 
which  is  its  objectified  expression,  and  in  relation 
to  which  God  is  spirit,  is  self-conscious  subject. 
Nature,  finite  spirit,  the  entire  world  of  conscious¬ 
ness,  intelligence  and  will  are  embodiments  of  the 
divine  Idea.  But  they  are  so  far  prodigal  sons. 
In  religion  do  these  errant  children  first  become 
reconciled  with  the  Divine  Father.  It  is  the  busi¬ 
ness  of  the  philosophy  of  religion  to  show  how  this 
reconciliation  is  accomplished.8 

In  immediate  knowledge  or  faith,  God  is  object 


1  Werke,  XII.,  p.  151. 

2  Ibid.,  XI.,  p.  18. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  24. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  135. 

4 


6  Ibid.,  p.  134. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  18. 

7  Ibid.,  XII.,  pp.  189-90. 

8  Ibid.,  XI.,  p.  27  ff. 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


>r 


for  the  finite  spirit.1  For  faith  he  is  not  a  mere 
totality,  but  rather  a  being  to  whom  the  finite  spirit 
stands  in  relation.1  God  appears  as  Object  in  the 
form  of  representation  ( Vorstellung ).2  It  is  the 
task  of  philosophy  to  exhibit  in  the  form  of  reason 
that  which  exists  in  the  common  mind  in  the  form 
of  representation.  Philosophy  and  common-sense 
correspond  in  content ;  they  differ  only  in  their 
manner  of  conceiving  the  same  fact.3  We  have  the 
logical  conception  of  God  as  unity,  as  totality  of 
the  finite,  as  manifesting  himself  in  the  finite  world. 
We  have  also  the  religious  representation  of  him 
as  objective  to  the  finite  spirit.  These  two  views 
of  God  must  be  unified  and  exhibited  as  equally 
necessary  aspects  of  God’s  being.  This  is  done 
in  a  representational  ( vorstellende )  pictorial  fashion 
in  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  T rinity .  “  The  T rin- 
ity  is  the  determination  of  God  as  Spirit.  Spirit 
without  this  determination  is  an  empty  word.”4 

The  three  aspects  of  God’s  being  are  treated 
respectively  under  “  the  realm  of  the  Father,” 
“  the  realm  of  the  Son,”  “  the  realm  of  the  Spirit.” 
God  is  the  absolute  eternal  Idea  who  exists  under 
these  aspects.  The  absolute  Idea5  is,  in  the  first 
place,  God  in  and  for  himself,  in  his  eternity,  before 
the  creation  of  the  world,  beyond  the  world.  In 

1  Werke ,  XI.,  pp.  63-64  ff. 

2  The  content  or  object  is  God,  who  is  present  at  first  in  the 
form  of  inner  intuition  (Ansc hauung). 

3  IVerke,  XI.,  pp.  14-15  ff.  4  Ibid.,  p.  22.  6 Ibid.,  XII.,  p.  177. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


51 


the  second  place  it  is  the  creation  of  the  world. 
This  created  world,  this  other  being,  divides  itself 
into  two  parts,  physical  nature  and  finite  spirit. 
Created  being  at  first  appears  as  external  to  God, 
as  having  existence  independent  of  him.  God 
reconciles  it  with  himself,  and  we  have,  in  the  third 
place,  the  process  of  reconciliation.  In  this  process 
the  spirit,  which  as  finite  was  cut  off  from  the 
divine  Spirit,  returns  to  unity  with  the  divine. 
The  third  aspect  of  God’s  being  is  the  first  enriched 
by  union  of  the  second  with  it.  These  three  aspects 
are  not  external  differences,  but  differentiations  of 
one  individual.  The  one  spirit  is  regarded  in  these 
three  forms  or  elements.1  Each  element  involves 
the  other  two.2  Any  one  element  by  itself  is  an 
abstraction  and  realizes  its  true  being  only  through 
the  other  elements. 

The  first  element  is  spaceless  and  timeless.  It 
is  God  in  his  self-existence.  It  is  the  unity  which 
preserves  its  oneness  amidst  change.  In  the  second 
element  or  aspect,  God  enters  the  world  of  space 
and  time,  the  world  of  nature  and  the  human  spirit. 
It  is  God’s  manifestation  of  himself  in  space  and 
time.  The  first  step  in  the  dialectic  of  the  divine 
life  is  the  non-temporal  act  by  which  from  the 
abysmal  depths  of  his  being  God  eternally  brings 
forth  a  world  of  finite  things  and  finite  spirits. 

1  Werke ,  XII.,  pp.  177-9. 

8  The  Idea  is  the  divine  self-revelation  in  these  three  forms. 
C Ibid  ,  p.  179.) 


52 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


The  everlasting  process  of  the  world  of  experience 
is  a  dialectic  movement  of  birth  and  death  and 
rebirth.  But  the  process  is  upward.  It  is  pervaded 
by  the  Divine  Idea,  impelled  by  an  End  that  is, 
while  yet  the  goal,  forever  realized,  and  therefore 
can  never  faint  or  grow  weary.  The  movement 
of  the  world  is  a  return  to  the  Divine  Father.  But 
this  return  can  be  real  only  if  the  Father  has  for¬ 
ever  dwelt  in  the  world.  That  he  has  so  dwelt  is 
the  insight  of  religion.  The  full  consciousness  of 
his  immanence  is  the  realization  of  the  absolute 
unity  of  man  and  God.  Other  religions  strive  for 
this.  Christianity  attains  it  in  its  doctrine  of  the 
God-Man.  But  the  perfect  unity  of  God  and  man  is 
attainable  only  if  the  Father  has  been  ever  with  man, 
bearing  the  burden  and  heat  of  man’s  life  on  earth 
and  sharing  in  all  the  passion  of  his  history.  To 
pain  and  struggle  and  death  in  man  corresponds 
the  principle  of  negativity  in  God.  He  negates 
himself  that  there  may  be  a  world,  and  in  this 
world  which  is  struggling  to  overcome  negation 
he  dwells  forever.  The  principle  of  negativity  or 
death  is  an  essential  moment  in  the  life  of  God. 
In  the  suffering  and  death  of  the  God-Man  is 
manifested  the  utter  immanence  of  God  in  the 
world,  his  invincible  presence  in  the  dialectic  of 
history.  In  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ 
there  was  presented  at  a  particular  point  in  time 
the  full  representation  of  the  timeless  life  of  God.1 

1  Werke,  XII.,  p.  287  ff. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


53 


But  negation  is  not  the  last  word.  Death  is  fol¬ 
lowed  by  resurrection.  Negation  is  itself  negatived. 
The  circle  completes  itself.  The  element  of  nega¬ 
tivity  is  taken  up  into  the  positive  element,  which 
is  Spirit.  The  Spirit  which  is  present  in  the  com¬ 
munity  is  the  realm  of  the  reconciliation  of  the 
finite  world  to  God.  It  is  God  as  totality.  The 
last  becomes  the  first.  The  Spirit  is  the  Father, 
and  man,  in  whom  the  spirit  is  become  conscious, 
is  a  mediate  element  or  moment  in  the  Divine 
Life.1  The  fulfilment  of  life  is  the  perfection  of 
subjectivity.2  In  nature  God  is  present  only  in  an 
external  fashion.  Man,  on  the  contrary,  rises  to 
the  consciousness  of  his  unity  with  God  and  of 
the  presence  of  the  divine  life  in  himself.3  In  the 
third  sphere,  that  of  the  Spirit,  we  have  God, 
nature,  and  man  comprehended  in  their  unity.  God 
is  the  u  concrete  universal  ”  which  sets  up  a  differ¬ 
ence  that  is  nevertheless  “  only  ideal  and  is  imme¬ 
diately  abolished.”  4  As  Spirit  he  is  the  perfect 
Individuality  which  arises  by  the  return  of  the 
Particular  (nature  and  finite  spirit)  to  the  bosom 
of  the  Universal  Father.  The  whole  process,  in 
which  the  Father  sends  out  of  his  own  depths  the 
world  of  things  and  men  only  to  recall  them  to 
himself,  is  the  divine  History .5  In  its  wholeness 
this  divine  history  is  timeless.  The  three  aspects 

1  Werke ,  XII.,  pp.  240,  312.  3 Ibid.,  pp.  267-8. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  284,  322.  4  Ibid.,  p.  190. 


54 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


of  it  can  be  characterized  in  relation  to  the  forms 
of  human  experience.  Viewed  in  relation  to  human 
consciousness  in  general,  the  first  aspect  is  the 
element  of  pure  thought,  the  second  that  of  repre¬ 
sentation  ( Vorstellimg *),  and  the  third  is  subjectivity 
as  such.  The  latter  in  its  unanalyzed  wholeness 
is  soul,  heart,  or  feeling,  but  when  it  knows  itself  it 
is  thinking  Reason. 

Defined  in  relation  to  space,  the  three  phases 
of  the  divine  history  are  respectively  outside  the 
world,  within  the  world,  and  in  the  spirit  of  the 
church ,  which  is  at  once  planted  in  space  and 
reaches  to  the  spaceless  Heaven  of  the  Father. 
Defined  in  relation  to  time,  the  three  phases  are 
respectively — God  as  the  eternal  Idea,  timeless  in 
reference  to  a  world  of  change  ;  God  as  having 
appeared  in  the  past,  as  the  properly  historical 
manifestation  in  the  earthly  sense ;  and,  thirdly, 
God  as  present  in  the  communion  of  the  church. 
The  latter  is  limited.  It  must  be  reconciled  with 
the  timeless  Spirit.  “  The  Spirit  which  disperses 
itself  into  finite  flashes  of  light  in  the  individual 
consciousness  must  again  gather  itself  together 
out  of  this  finitude.”  “  Out  of  the  fermentation 
of  finitude,  as  it  transmutes  itself  into  foam,  there 
rises  the  exhalation  of  spirit.”  1 

We  have  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  the  fuller 
development  of  the  Absolute  Idea,  with  which  the 
Logic  culminates,  expressed  in  terms  of  religious 

1  Werke ,  XII.,  p.  330. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


55 


thinking.  In  neither  work  is  God  a  mere  cate¬ 
gory.  It  is  plain  that  the  Absolute  Idea,  which  is 
the  unity  that  returns  to  itself  from  difference,  or, 
to  express  the  same  thought  differently,  the  self 
that  maintains  itself  amid  change,  is  identical  with 
God  as  unfolded  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion. 
God  is  the  ground  thought  of  Hegel’s  system. 
But  Hegel  tells  us  that  the  Absolute  Idea  does 
not  mean  quite  the  same  as  God.1  The  term 
“  God  ”  carries  here  the  meaning  that  it  has  for 
finite  spirits  contemplating  him.  It  refers  to  God 
as  he  is  present  in  religious  devotion.  God  is  ob¬ 
ject  to  man’s  faith  in  the  form  of  representation 
( Vorstellung ).  Religion  always  presents  God  in 
the  form  of  representation.  As  he  exists  in  re¬ 
ligion,  God  is  wholly  objective  in  relation  to  man, 
hence  not  the  Absolute.  The  Absolute  Idea  is 
the  comprehensive  unity  of  God  and  man.  Never¬ 
theless  the  Absolute  Idea  is  God  speculatively 
considered.  As  a  mere  object  to  man’s  thought, 
God  would  be  a  finite  individual  entering  into  rela¬ 
tion  with  other  finite  individuals.  His  individual 
character  would  thus  be  defective.  God  is  not 
merely  objective  to  man.  Man  has  his  being  in 
God.  God  is  at  once  the  source  from  which  the 
finite  individual  springs,  and  the  ground  of  the 
relation  through  which,  in  its  dependence,  the 
finite  individual  reaches  out  to,  and  realizes  itself 
in,  the  absolute  individual.  Finite  selves  are  true 

1  Werke,  XI.,  p.  16. 


56  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


only  because  they  belong  to  the  infinite  self. 
Therefore,  metaphysically,  God  and  the  Absolute 
are  one.  We  have  seen  above  that  God,  meta¬ 
physically  regarded;  is  the  unity  which  differenti¬ 
ates  itself  into  nature  and  man,  and  yet  remains 
identical  with  itself.  When  man  sees  himself  and 
nature  as  contained  in  this  unity,  and  feels  himself 
to  be  at  one  with  the  unity,  he  has  reached  abso¬ 
lute  knowledge.  He  has  attained  the  metaphysical 
determination  of  God.  He  lives  in  the  kingdom 
of  the  spirit. 

What  is  the  relation  of  God  as  the  central  unity 
to  his  content,  the  world-process  ?  God  as  self- 
related  unity  is  not  in  time  or  in  space,  and  yet 
the  process  of  the  world  is  an  essential  element  of 
God’s  being.  Hegel  would  say  that  the  central 
unity  and  the  world-process  are  both  abstractions. 
Therefore  it  is  fruitless  to  talk  about  their  rela¬ 
tions.  God  is  both.  They  seem  to  contradict  each 
other,  but  this  apparent  contradiction  is  a  pulse  of 
the  divine  Life. 

The  meaning  of  the  world-process  is  further  de¬ 
veloped  in  the  Philosophy  of  History.  “  The  des¬ 
tiny  of  the  spiritual  world,  and — since  this  is  the 
substantial  world,  while  the  physical  remains  sub¬ 
ordinate  to  it,  or,  in  the  language  of  speculation, 
has  no  truth  as  against  the  spiritual — the  final 
cause  of  the  world  at  large  we  allege  to  be  the 
consciousness  of  its  own  freedom  on  the  part  of 
the  spirit  and  ipso  facto  the  reality  of  that  free- 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


5 ; 


dom.”  1  Freedom  is  the  Idea  of  Spirit.  In  the 
development  of  the  world  this  freedom  is  at  first 
implicit  and  unactualized.  All  the  struggles  of 
nations  and  individuals  are  stepping-stones  by 
which  men  rise  to  freedom.  Men  began  with  the 
belief  that  one  man  only  was  free,  the  king,  and 
have  risen  to  the  belief  that  all  men  are  free. 

Hegel  says  that  the  Spirit  realizes  itself  in  time 
and  that  the  idea  of  spirit  is  the  end  of  history. 
“  Spirit  ”  is  used  here  in  the  generic  sense.  The 
Absolute  Spirit  realizes  itself  in  history,  but  as 
eternal ;  it  is  at  every  moment  completely  real. 
It  does  not  wait  until  the  end  of  time  to  attain 
fruition.  History,  Hegel  says,  is  the  theatre  of  the 
unceasing  strife  and  reconciliation  of  the  Absolute 
Spirit  and  the  finite  individual.  The  former  con¬ 
tinually  overrules  the  purposes  of  men  in  order 
that  they  may  realize  their  true  destiny — freedom. 
God  is  immanent  in  the  world,  directs  the  world’s 
history  towards  the  development  of  freedom. 
God  himself  does  not  develop.  Men  are  the  sub¬ 
jects  of  historical  development.  The  divine  Idea 
realizes  its  purpose  in  history  through  the  realiza¬ 
tion  of  human  freedom.  The  concrete  individuals 
have  a  place,  not  in  themselves,  but  as  realizing 
the  divine  purpose.  On  the  other  hand,  the  divine 
Idea  has  no  meaning  apart  from  the  concrete  indi¬ 
viduals  in  which  it  finds  expression. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  in  the  consideration 
1  Philosophy  of  History ,  p.  20  (translated  by  Sibree). 


58  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


of  the  time-process  of  the  finite  world  God  as 
completed  self-consciousness  disappears,  and  that 
he  appears  only  as  subject  of  the  historical  devel¬ 
opment.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  specific  considera¬ 
tion  of  the  time-process,  which  is  one  aspect  of 
God,  the  aspect  of  him  as  eternally  complete  real¬ 
ity  does  not  come  forward  prominently.  Hegel 
would  say  that  this  abstraction  is  necessary  for 
the  purposes  of  exposition,  but  that  it  is  not  true. 
The  truth  is  that  eternity  and  the  time-process 
belong  together.  God  is  not  a  mere  subject  of 
the  historical  development,  yet  the  historical  de¬ 
velopment  is  necessary  to  his  selfhood.  For  God 
is  the  unity  of  all  that  is.  The  objection  is  made, 
however,  that  Hegel  makes  no  passage  from  the 
notion  of  God  as  eternal,  self-related  unity  to  the 
facts  of  the  finite  world.1  Here,  again,  Hegel 
would  answer  that  only  the  abstract  understand¬ 
ing  would  ask  for  such  a  passage,  and  that  the 
demand  is  fruitless.  His  system  is  an  attempt  to 
give  unity  to  the  facts  of  the  time  and  space 
world.  The  facts  by  their  incompleteness  demand 
the  unity,  and  they  depend  upon  that  unity  for 
their  existence.  By  his  construction  of  the  Trin¬ 
ity,  Hegel  seeks  to  provide  a  place  for  the  facts  of 
the  finite  world  in  his  conception  of  God.  The 
phrases  drawn  from  the  conception  of  the  Trinity 
are  used  in  a  metaphorical  way.  The  three  spheres 
of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  express  the  three  rno- 

1  By  A.  Seth,  Hegelianism  and  Personality ,  Lecture  6. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


59 


ments  in  the  relation  of  the  eternal  and  the  time- 
process.  God  as  eternally  complete  is  the  eternal- 
in-itself,  being-in-itself.  But  being-in-itself  could 
never  exist  by  itself.  God  must  manifest  himself 
in  the  finite  world.  The  eternal  must  appear  in  the 
time-process.  This  is  being-for-self.  But  by  itself 
being-for-self,  that  is,  being  which  goes  outside  it¬ 
self,  is  unreal.  The  eternal  and  the  temporal  must 
exist  together.  This  existence  together,  being  in 
and  for  self,  the  unity  of  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
of  God  and  the  World,  exists  in  the  realm  of  the 
Spirit.  The  Spirit  is  the  sphere  of  reason,  or,  as 
we  might  put  it,  of  constructive  imagination  that 
unites  and  holds  together  contradictions.  In  the 
Spirit  we  see  God,  nature,  and  ourselves  in  unity. 
The  third  element  returns  to  the  first.  We  recog¬ 
nize  ourselves  as  contained  in  God. 

But  how  are  we  to  think  together  an  eternal 
Unity  and  the  flux  of  becoming?  If  change  is  an 
essential  moment  in  existence  and  God  in  himself 
does  not  change,  what  does  change  mean  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  him?  How  can  God’s  history  be  timeless 
if  man’s  history,  which  is  for  himself  real  and 
breathing  with  passion,  has  any  significance  for 
God  ?  If  man’s  life  is  an  element  in  the  divine 
Life,  then  the  latter,  sharing  as  it  does  in  the 
time-process  of  the  world,  suffers  imperfection. 
Does  not  imperfection  then  become  a  moment  in 
the  divine  Life?  Does  it  not  mar  the  divine  per¬ 
fection?  Does  it  not  disturb  the  eternal  repose 


6o  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


of  God  ?  Hegel’s  answer  to  the  first  of  these 
questions  is  yes!  to  the  other  two,  no!  Hegel 
holds  firmly  to  the  repose  of  perfection  and  to  the 
restlessness  of  imperfection  as  necessary  and  com¬ 
plementary  aspects  of  experience. 

The  experience  of  the  real  flux  of  events  presses 
too  insistently  on  the  philosopher  to  permit  of  his 
taking  refuge  in  a  merely  static  world.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  instinct  of  thought,  the  thirst  for 
completeness  impels  him  to  seek  a  unity.  In 
what  way  shall  he  best  express  this  unity  that 
persists  amidst  change  as  the  permanent  law  of 
change?  How  shall  he  conceive  the  perfect  being 
without  denying  the  progress  of  the  imperfect 
world  ?  In  self-consciousness,  which  is  ever  in 
movement  but  retains  its  self-identity,  which  pro¬ 
ceeds  outward  and  gathers  the  concrete  details  of 
the  world  into  itself,  which  absorbs  and  assimilates 
what  at  first  seems  external  to  it,  Hegel  finds  the 
principle  which  best  enables  him  to  adumbrate 
the  nature  of  the  totality  of  things — God.  He 
analyzes  with  keen  insight  the  Self  which,  always 
reaching  beyond  itself  and  ever  involved  in  contra¬ 
dictions,  yet  never  loses  itself  and  never  succumbs 
to  these  contradictions.  He  applies  the  principle 
of  selfhood  to  all  the  “  tangled  facts  of  experience.” 

The  all-essential  quality  of  self  or  spirit  is,  for 
Hegel,  its  inevitable  tendency  to  find  its  own  life 
in  its  other.  The  richness  and  perfection  of  self¬ 
hood  are  proportionate  to  the  degree  in  which  it 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


6 1 


finds  itself  in  that  apparent  other  which  is  never¬ 
theless  only  the  wealth  of  its  own  potential  being 
projected  outward.  The  sterner  the  struggle  the 
greater  the  victory.  The  deepest  pain  gives  fullest 
joy.  Spirit  can  comprehend  itself  only  in  infinite 
opposition.1  So  the  Eternal  Spirit  realizes  itself 
only  through  negation  of  self.  The  principle  of 
negativity  is  woven  into  the  very  texture  of  being. 
Time,  Space,  Evil,  Imperfection,  are  but  forms  of 
appearance  of  this  principle  of  negativity.  Yes! 
through  it  only  truth  and  freedom,  the  highest 
attributes  of  Spirit,  themselves  come  to  be.2  The 
dialectic  process  is  a  never-ceasing  moment  of  life. 
“  He  that  loseth  his  life  shall  save  it.” 

Hegel’s  so-called  followers  of  the  Left  have  in¬ 
terpreted  his  conception  of  God  as  that  of  an 
impersonal  Absolute  which  develops  itself  in  the 
world-process,  comes  to  consciousness  first  in  man, 
and  reaches  perfection  only  in  the  greatest  man. 
If  the  Logic  only  were  in  evidence,  the  interpre¬ 
tation  might  be  justifiable.  Such  passages  as  : 
“  Spirit,  in  so  far  as  it  is  the  Spirit  of  God,  is  not 
a  Spirit  beyond  the  stars,”  “  God  is  present  every¬ 
where  and  in  all  spirits,”  3  have  been  interpreted  in 
this  way.  What  these  passages  actually  testify  to 
is  a  belief  in  God’s  living  presence  in  the  world. 
To  say  that  “  man  feels  and  knows  God  in  him¬ 
self  ” 4  is  not  to  say  that  God  has  no  conscious 

1  Werke ,  XII.,  p.  212.  3  Ibid.,  XI.,  p.  24. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  208.  4  Ibid.,  p.  37. 


62  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


existence  apart  from  this  individual  feeling.  The 
passage  which  would  give  strongest  support  to 
the  view  taken  by  the  Hegelians  of  the  Left  is 
perhaps  this :  “  Religion  is  knowledge  by  the 

Divine  Spirit  of  itself  through  the  mediation  of 
finite  spirit.” 1  This  statement  is  perfectly  con¬ 
sistent  with  the  idea  of  God  as  objective  to  every 
man.  Finite  spirit  is  an  integral  part  of  God’s 
being.  Man  is  God  as  “  other.”  But  God  does 
not  lose  his  identity  in  this  difference.  “  Spirit  is 
spirit  for  itself.”2  “  We  say  God  produces  eter¬ 
nally  his  son  (the  world).  God  distinguishes  him¬ 
self  from  himself,  .  .  .  we  must  know  well  that 
God  is  this  whole  act.  He  is  the  beginning,  the 
end,  and  the  totality.”3  Nevertheless  the  process 
is  nothing  but  a  play  of  self-conservation,  self- 
assertion.4  God  can  be  said  to  be  conscious  of 
himself  in  the  religious  man  since  he  is  immanent 
in  man,  and  in  religion  this  divine  immanence 
comes  to  consciousness.  God  knows  himself  in 
man  only  as  man  knows  himself  in  God.  The 
divine  immanence  is  not  a  dead  fixture,  but  a 
living  spiritual  process.  Man  is  indeed  essential 
to  God’s  being.  The  Plegelians  of  the  Left  em¬ 
phasize  this  aspect  of  the  system  and  neglect 
entirely  the  aspect  in  which  God  is  regarded  as 
eternally  completed  self-consciousness. 

That  God  could  never  exist  as  conscious  spirit 

1  Werke,  XI.,  p.  129.  3  Ibid.,  XII.,  p.  185. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  13.  *  Ibid.,  p.  199. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  63 


without  a  world  as  objective  to  his  thought  is  a 
legitimate  inference  from  Hegel’s  system.  But 
the  further  inference  that  therefore  God  had  no 
conscious  existence  before  the  development  of 
man  on  this  planet  is  wholly  unwarranted.  In 
his  self-diremption  into  the  object  of  his  own  con¬ 
sciousness  God  is  as  truly  eternal  as  in  the  abys¬ 
mal  depths  of  the  Idea  which  is  the  father  of  all 
things.  According  to  Hegel  there  was  no  time 
when  a  world  did  not  exist  for  the  divine  thought. 
The  principle  of  negativity  is  an  eternal  attribute 
of  the  divine  Nature.  Hence  it  is  irrelevant  to 
Hegel’s  system  to  speak  of  a  point  in  time  when 
God  did  not  exist  in  the  fulness  of  being.  It  is 
equally  irrelevant  to  speak  of  a  time  when  the 
world,  considered  as  a  moment  in  the  divine  Life, 
began  to  be.  Spirit  is  the  logical  prills  of  the 
whole  theory,  but  Spirit  defines  itself  through  all 
eternity  in  a  system  of  differences. 

Hegel  is  sometimes  criticised  for  using  the  word 
“  spirit  ”  without  qualification  “  to  designate  bt>th 
God  and  man.”  He  used  the  word  in  this  way 
because  with  him  “  spirit  ”  was  the  meeting-point 
of  the  divine  and  the  human.  But  “spirit  ”  is  no 
abstraction.  Hegel  was  keenly  conscious  of  the 
necessity  of  doing  justice  to  the  concrete  detail 
with  which  the  world  confronts  philosophy.  His 
theory  of  the  concrete  universal,  i.e.,  the  indi¬ 
vidual,  is  an  attempt  to  meet  the  difficulty.  For 
Hegel  the  individual  is  the  real,  but  there  is  only 


64  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


one  real  individual,  namely,  God.  In  the  Philos¬ 
ophy  of  Religion  God  is  described  in  the  realm  of 
the  Spirit  as  the  complete  unity  which  takes  up 
the  other  two  aspects  into  itself.  “  This  third 
realm  is  the  Idea  in  its  determination  of  individu¬ 
ality.”  1  Some  critics  think  that  the  tendency  of 
Hegel’s  thought  is  to  make  God  an  impersonal 
unity.  Hegel’s  incessant  naming  of  God  as  Idea 
lends  color  to  this  view.  His  vice  is  over-intel- 
lectualism.  But  an  impersonal  Absolute  would 
leave  no  place  for  religion,  and  Hegel  maintains 
in  his  system  the  reality  of  religion.  He  tells  us 
that  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  has  the  task  to 
convert  what  is  present  pictorially  to  the  mind  of 
the  common  man  into  terms  of  thought.2  He  says 
that  the  opposition  of  believing  and  knowing  is  a 
false  one.  In  believing  or  immediate  knowing 
( immittelbares  Wissen)  there  is  present  in  the  form 
of  feeling  what  is  present  in  cognizing  (A rkennen) 3 
in  the  form  of  thought.  In  his  lectures  on  the 
proofs  for  God’s  existence,  he  seeks,  not  to  show 
that  these  proofs  are  adequate,  but  that  they  are 
means  by  which  the  human  spirit  elevates  itself  to 
God.4  He  talks  quite  in  the  Pauline  vein  of  “  the 
witness  of  the  spirit  to  the  spirit  in  man’s  knowing 
God.”  The  relation  of  man  to  God  is  “  the  relation 
of  spirit  to  spirit.”  5  At  the  conclusion  of  the  Phi¬ 
losophy  of  Religion  he  tells  us  that  the  “  end  of  these 

1  Werke,  XII.,  p.  257  ff.  2  Ibid.,  XI.,  pp.  14-5. 

8  Ibid.,  p.  64  ff.  4  Ibid.,  XII.,  p.  301.  6  Ibid.,  XI.,  p.  60. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  65 


lectures  is  to  reconcile  science  and  religion.”  1  His 
designation  of  God  as  Idea  is  only  the  logical 
aspect  of  his  theory  of  God.  I11  his  works  deal¬ 
ing  with  the  concrete  world,  God  is  called  the 
Absolute  Spirit.  We  have  seen  that  God  is  essen¬ 
tially  individuality,  and  that  Hegel  regards  per¬ 
sonality  as  the  richest  and  most  concrete  being, 
including  all  differences  in  itself.  Hegel  charac¬ 
terizes  the  Absolute  Idea  and  Personality  in  simi¬ 
lar  terms.  The  Absolute  Idea  contains  in  itself 
as  essential  moments  the  facts  of  the  finite  world. 
But  in  the  finite  world  finite  spirits  are  the  true 
realities  over  against  material  things.  God  is  the 
Absolute  Spirit,  the  supreme  self  in  whom  finite 
spirits  live  and  move  and  have  their  being.  If 
God  is  not  personal  as  we  know  personality,  it  is 
because  he  is  super-personal.  In  terms  of  feeling 
God  may  be  defined  as  Love — as  a  play  of  differ¬ 
entiation,  together  with  the  feeling  of  the  unity 
which  dwells  in  the  differences. 

The  question  has  been  raised  as  to  whether 
Hegel’s  God  is  not  better  described  as  a  society 
than  as  a  single  person.2  Now,  Hegel’s  God  is 
certainly  not  an  individual  spirit  existing  in  single 
blessedness  apart  from  all  the  contents  of  his  uni¬ 
verse.  He  therefore  is  not  a  single  person  in  the 
sense  in  which  we  are  individual's.3  But  he  is  for- 

1  Werke,  XII.,  p.  288. 

3  By  Mr.  McTaggart,  Mind ,  N.  S.,  VI.,  p.  575. 

3  Werke ,  XI.,  p.  66. 


66  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


ever  the  unity  of  the  society  of  individual  finite 
spirits.  In  him  the  scattered  rays  of  light  which 
issue  from  the  multitude  of  finite  selves  converge 
to  a  single  point — to  the  unstained  purity  and 
translucency  of  an  absolute  self-consciousness. 
God,  then,  is  the  unity  of  spirits.  The  society 
of  finite  individuals  exists  as  the  object  of  his 
thought.  Without  them  his  Life  would  be  blind. 
Without  him  they  would  be  chaos  and  anarchy 
and  naught. 

In  brief,  God,  in  Hegel's  philosophy,  is  the 
universal  self-consciousness  which  comprehends 
within  itself  all  concrete  differences,  men  and 
things.  “  God  is  a  Spirit  in  his  own  concrete 
differences,  of  which  every  finite  spirit  is  one.”1 
Man  truly  knows  God  when  he  sees  nature  and 
himself  as  manifestations  of  God,  and  recognizes 
himself  as  the  highest  of  these  manifestations, 
capable  of  grasping  in  thought  the  whole  of  which 
he  is  a  part.2 

It  has  been  doubted  whether  there  is  any  place 
in  Hegel’s  system  for  individuals.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  most  insistent  note  in  Hegel’s  writings  is 
the  emphasis  on  the  concrete  individual.  He  never 
wearies  of  attacking  abstractions  like  “  being  ”  and 
“  substance.”  The  movement  of  the  Logic  is 

1  Stirling,  The  Secret  of  Hegel,  II.,  p.  579. 

3  See  Pfleiderer,  Philosophy  of  Religion ,  II.,  p.  95.  After 
reaching  this  conclusion  I  find  myself  confirmed  in  it  by  Pro¬ 
fessor  Pfleiderer. 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  67 


towards  the  category  of  individuality.  The  Phi¬ 
losophy  of  History  makes  the  freedom  of  the  in¬ 
dividual  the  goal  of  history.  Hegel  maintains 
that  the  moral,  ethical,  religious  aspect  of  human 
individuals  is  an  end  in  itself.  This  aspect  in  in¬ 
dividuals  is  “  inherently  eternal  and  divine.”  1  But 
the  individuality  of  the  Logic  is  the  absolute,  all- 
comprehensive  self.  The  freedom  of  the  human 
individual  exists  only  where  individuality  is  recog¬ 
nized  as  having  its  real  and  positive  existence  in 
the  Divine  Being.2  The  Philosophy  of  Religion  is 
the  presentation  of  an  Absolute  Individual,  a  unity 
in  difference,  a  self-related  system  in  which  infinite 
individuals  are  at  home  when  they  know  them¬ 
selves  as  dependent  on  the  whole  organism,  which 
is  God.  To  speak  in  concrete  terms,  in  Hegel’s 
thought  man  has  no  existence  in  himself.  He  is 
real  only  as  he  knows  himself  in  God.  To  know 
himself  so  is  man’s  true  destiny.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  God  exists  only  as  he  knows  him¬ 
self  in  man.  To  separate  the  finite  and  the  infinite 
individual  is  to  destroy  both,  according  to  Hegel. 
The  finite  individual  is  but  a  moment  in  the 
Absolute,  but  he  is  none  the  less  essential  to  the 
life  of  the  Absolute.  But,  it  must  be  admitted, 
Hegel  does  not  recognize  the  value  of  individ¬ 
uality  in  itself.  He  does  not  seem  to  allow 
any  interior  life  to  the  human  person.  He  speaks 
as  if  the  whole  nature  of  the  individual  were 

2  Ibid.,  p.  53. 


) 


1  Philosophy  of  History,  pp.  34-5. 


68 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


exhausted  in  his  relations  to  society,  church, 
and  state.  Uniqueness  in  a  person  seems  to 
be,  for  him,  pathological.  Corresponding  to  his 
disparagement  of  individuality  is  Hegel’s  depre¬ 
ciation  of  feeling.  This,  he  holds,  gets  its  sig¬ 
nificance  entirely  from  thought.  In  itself  it 
is  that  which  we  possess  in  common  with  the 
animals. 


3.  Conclusion. 

Finally,  what  is  to  be  said  of  this  magnificent 
attempt  to  interpret  the  whole  sphere  of  being  in 
the  light  of  a  self-conscious  principle  of  rationality? 
It  must  be  said,  I  think,  that  the  attempt  fails  to 
accomplish  all  that  was  aimed  at.  The  aim  of 
the  system  is  to  show  that  reality  is  rational 
through  and  through.  But  the  contingent  detail 
of  experience  proves  too  refractory  for  Hegel,  and 
he  is  forced  to  admit  that  all  the  facts  cannot 
be  rationalized.  In  other  words,  his  absolutism 
breaks  down.  The  vice  of  this  absolutism  con¬ 
sists  in  the  tendency  to  identify  the  ultimate 
reality  with  the  time-process. 

The  key  to  the  relation  of  the  two  factors  is 
found  in  the  dialectic  method.  In  his  application 
of  this  method  Hegel  has  shown  that  all  the 
forms  of  finite  thought,  such  as  the  notion  of 
separate  individual  things,  of  mechanical  causality 
conceived  as  final,  etc.,  are  infected  with  the  germs 
of  decay.  The  knowledge  which  these  finite  cate- 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD  69 


gories  give  is  mediated.  The  process  of  media¬ 
tion  goes  relentlessly  forward  until  the  categories 
of  common-sense  and  scientific  thought  find  repose 
in  the  Spirit  or  Idea.  This  is  the  final  reality.  In 
Spirit  the  dialectic  movement  is  transcended.  It 
is  true  that,  inasmuch  as  the  march  of  common- 
sense  and  positive  science  was  the  march  of  the 
Spirit  homeward,  the  dialectic  belongs  to  the  nature 
of  spirit.  But  in  the  Absolute  Spirit  it  is  set  at  rest. 
The  process  of  mediation  has  ended  in  a  higher 
immediacy.  If  Absolute  Spirit  has  been  really 
reached  mediation  is  transcended  in  the  vision 
of  reality,  and  the  dialectic  of  philosophy  has 
achieved  its  euthanasia.  So  long  as  the  dialectic 
is  in  process  spirit  is  not  present  in  its  perfection. 
Hegel  is  fond  of  calling  the  dialectic  process  the 
thing  itself,  the  very  reality  of  life  {die  Sache 
selbst).  The  method,  he  says,  is  the  soul  and 
substance,  the  absolute  might  and  highest  im¬ 
pulse  of  reason  itself.1  Now,  a  movement  must 
be  of  something.  A  process,  however  essential  to 
that  which  proceeds,  must  be  from  some  state 
of  being  through  some  forms  of  existence  and 
towards  a  definite  goal.  According  to  Hegel, 
Spirit  is  the  starting-point,  the  way,  and  the  ter¬ 
minus  of  the  dialectic  process.  If  this  be  so,  then 
spirit  cannot  be  adequately  expressed  as  a  mere 
evolutionary  process.  It  may  absorb  the  process, 
but  in  its  own  finality  it  ceases  to  be  a  process,  and 
1  Werke ,  V. ,  pp.  320,  321,  etc. 


7  o 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


never  was  simply  that  and  nothing  more.  Hegel 
has  to  admit  this  conclusion.  Then  philosophy,  as 
he  conceives  it,  has  not  grasped  the  fulness  of 
Spirit.  It  has  not  exhausted  the  nature  of  sub¬ 
jectivity.  When  the  process  is  ended,  being  and 
becoming,  the  infinite  and  the  finite,  the  absolute 
and  the  relative,  holiness  and  imperfection  are  no 
longer  united  by  the  negativity  of  the  dialectic 
itself,  but  in  an  experience  which  has  ceased  to  be 
philosophy,  since  the  dialectic  has  been  set  at  rest 
and  the  power  of  the  negative  has  been  overcome. 
It  does  not  seem,  then,  that  philosophy  can  claim 
superiority  of  insight  to  art  and  religion.  For  in 
the  latter  the  struggle  of  contradiction,  which 
separates  spirit  from  the  immediacy  of  existence, 
is  laid  at  rest.  The  knowledge  of  the  Absolute 
must  be  an  immediate  experience  which  tran¬ 
scends  negation,  and  is  not  a  mere  incomplete 
process  of  overcoming  opposition. 

Such  an  experience  perhaps  comes  only  through 
the  higher  unity  of  feeling  as  an  immediate  con¬ 
sciousness.  Hegel,  I  have  said,  depreciated  feel¬ 
ing  and  heaped  contempt  on  the  finite  individual 
as  a  centre  of  unique  feeling.  The  Hegelian  sys- 
tem  sought  to  reveal  the  warp  and  woof  of  the 
universe,  and  not  merely  to  show  us  the  pattern  of 
that  part  of  the  fabric  on  which  we  are  figures, 
but  to  lift  the  screen  and  reveal  the  Great  Weaver 
sitting  at  the  loom.  The  fabric  woven  by  Hegel 
is  made  up  so  entirely  of  intellectual  threads  that 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


71 


it  fails  to  represent  fairly  our  world  with  its  com¬ 
plex  constituents.  The  system  is  one-sidedly 
intellectualistic.  Hegel  has  marked  some  of  the 
salient  features  of  self-consciousness  or  personality. 
His  terms  (“  in  itself,”  “  for  itself,”  “in  and  for 
itself  ”)  are  abstract  expressions  for  the  ceaseless 
movement  of  the  human  soul,  for  our  life  with  its 
cravings,  its  desires,  and  its  satisfactions,  which 
seem  to  follow  one  another  in  a  never-ending 
spiral .  movement.  Our  mental  life  is  a  ceaseless 
movement  of  outgoing  to  the  object  and  return 
to  self.  But  in  his  own  application  of  subjectivity 
as  the  key  to  the  riddle  of  existence,  he  over¬ 
looks  entirely  the  place  of  feeling  in  the  life  of 
the  self.  He  calls  the  highest  form  of  subjectivity 
thinking  reason,  and  this  he  regards  as  essentially 
active,  that  is,  as  including  will.  Hegel’s  thinking 
reason  is  cognition-volition.  But  the  impulse  of 
will  lies  in  feeling,  and  the  goal  of  will  is  an  imme¬ 
diate  state  of  feeling.  Cognition  can  never  ade¬ 
quately  reflect  the  life  of  the  subject.  It  is  im¬ 
personal.  Conation  or  volition,  which  arises  from 
the  union  of  cognition  and  feeling,  is  the  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  personal  life.  Feeling  gives  unity  to 
both  cognition  and  volition.  Hegel  did  violence 
to  experience  by  overlooking  the  significance  of 
feeling  and  volition  in  the  life  of  the  self.  This 
oversight  gives  ground  for  the  view  that  his  phi¬ 
losophy  is  a  one-sided  system  of  mere  logical  ideal¬ 
ism,  a  very  inadequate  interpretation  of  the  nature 


72 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


of  man.  The  same  oversight  is  responsible  for 
Hegel’s  absolutism  and  his  blindness  to  the 
uniqueness  of  personality.  But  what  could  one 
expect  from  the  official  philosopher  of  the  Prus¬ 
sian  bureaucracy? 

Hegel  was  too  sure  of  the  similarity  of  divine 
and  human  thought  (particularly  his  own  thought). 
He  carries  his  anthropomorphism  too  far.  There 
may  be  forms  and  conditions  of  being  of  which 
we  have  never  dreamt.  It  is  useless  and  mis¬ 
chievous  to  assume  that  God  exhausts  his  nature 
by  his  manifestations  on  our  planet.  We  should 
hesitate  before  “  transferring  to  God  all  the  features 
of  our  own  self-consciousness.” 

Hegel’s  great  quality  as  a  philosopher  is  his  faith 
in  the  rationality  of  the  world.  He  stands  as  a 
splendid  example,  worthy  to  be  followed  by  all 
who  would  ask  questions  of  the  universe.  He 
inspires  us  with  the  confidence  that  such  ques¬ 
tions  in  some  way  will  be  answered.  His  highest 
philosophical  achievement  consists  in  his  insight 
into  the  apparent  contradictions  of  life.  He  sees 
clearly  that  the  development,  not  only  of  thought, 
but  of  the  spirit  of  the  race  and  of  the  individual 
spirit,  is  a  process  of  growth  into  greater  fulness 
and  concreteness  of  life  through  struggle,  suffer¬ 
ing  and  decay.  He  sees  that  “  Die  to  live  ”  is 
everywhere  the  law  of  existence.  Contradictions 
belong  to  the  heart  of  things.  But  they  do  not 
destroy.  Nay,  rather  they  build  up.  They  are 


HEGEL’S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 


7  3 


complementary  factors  in  the  unity  of  the  organic 
life  of  man.  This  is  an  insight  to  think  and  live 
and  work  by.  But  it  is  the  offspring  of  the  whole 
man,  rather  than  the  product  of  the  mere  intel¬ 
lect.  Hegel  gives  us  a  true  standpoint  from 
which  to  view  human  history,  and  then  vitiates 
his  work  by  assuming  an  air  of  finality  and  in¬ 
fallibility.  We  cannot,  from  the  standpoint  of 
scientific  knowledge,  make  dogmatic  statements 
with  regard  to  what  lies  beyond  the  world  of  our 
experience.  But  Hegel’s  insight  into  the  mys¬ 
teries  of  the  life  of  the  spirit  in  the  individual  and 
the  race  is  profound,  and  gives  a  permanent  and 
fruitful  point  of  view  from  which  to  appreciate 
and  penetrate  the  inner  meaning  of  human  history 
and  the  individual  life. 


CHAPTER  III. 

schleiermacher’s  conception  of  god. 

It  should  be  premised  that  the  word  “  concep¬ 
tion  ”  does  not  apply  to  Schleiermacher’s  doctrine 
of  God  in  the  same  technical  sense  in  which  it 
applies  to  Hegel’s  doctrine  of  God.  For  Hegel 
the  Divine  Idea  is  simply  the  actualization  of  the 
concept  ( Begriff ).  Schleiermacher,  on  the  other 
hand,  regards  the  concept  as  a  secondary  and 
inadequate  expression  of  the  knowledge  of  God, 
possessing  only  an  approximate  and  constantly 
changing  value.  He  regards  the  God-conscious¬ 
ness  as  immediate.  The  direct  organ  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  is  feeling.  I  hope,  in  the 
course  of  this  exposition,  to  bring  out  clearly 
this  fundamental  divergence  of  Schleiermacher 
from  Hegel.  In  the  meantime  I  shall  endeavor 
to  follow  the  course  of  Schleiermacher’s  own  ex¬ 
position  of  his  doctrine.  Then  I  shall  give  some 
account  of  his  relation  to  other  philosophers,  and 
I  shall  conclude  with  a  brief  estimate  of  the  value 
of  his  views. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


i.  Schleiermacher  s  Doctrine  of  God  in  its  Variojis 

Aspects. 

A.  The  General  Attitude  as  Expressed  in  the  “ Reden 

iiber  Religion." 

Schleiermacher’s  deeply  gifted  and  many  sided 
nature  early  received  a  profoundly  religious  im¬ 
press  ;  first  through  the  training  of  his  mother, 
and  later  in  the  Herrnhutic  communities  at  Niesky 
and  Barby.  The  Herrnhutic  brotherhood  was 
strictly  pietistic  in  tendency,  and  its  organization 
and  methods  were  wholly  directed  towards  devel¬ 
oping  in  the  members  a  personal  relation  to  the 
Saviour.  The  education  given  at  the  seminary 
in  Barby  was  modelled  with  this  design,  and  the 
contemporary  science  and  literature  of  the  Auf- 
klarung  were  rigorously  excluded.  At  the  com¬ 
munity  school  in  Niesky  Schleiermacher  had,  with 
several  friends,  studied  the  Greek  and  Latin  class¬ 
ics,  and  in  spite  of  the  watchfulness  of  the  relig¬ 
ious  teachers  and  directors  at  Barby  the  eager 
spirits  of  these  youthful  friends  found  means  of 
further  communication  with  the  outside  world. 
They  eagerly  devoured  the  writings  of  Wieland, 
Goethe,  etc.,  and  the  result,  in  Schleiermacher’s 
case,  was  that  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  after  a  pain¬ 
ful  struggle  and  in  the  face  of  the  stern  displeas¬ 
ure  of  his  father,  a  minister  of  the  Reformed 
Church,  he  broke  with  the  brotherhood  and  sought 


;6  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


more  light  at  the  University  of  Halle.  Here  he 
found  himself  in  1787  in  the  full  tide  of  the  Auf- 
klarung.  But  Schleiermacher  had  no  interest  in 
the  ruling  rationalistic  theology  of  Halle,  and  de¬ 
voted  his  attention,  for  the  most  part,  in  these 
and  the  succeeding  years,  to  Plato,  Aristotle,  and 
Kant,  and  to  current  literature.1 

Notwithstanding  the  wide  gulf  that  separated 
Schleiermacher’s  maturer  views  from  those  of  the 
Herrnhutists,  we  see  clearly  from  his  letters  that 
he  remained  at  one  with  them  in  his  estimate  of 
the  independence  and  supremacy  of  religion  as  a 
unique  factor  in  the  life  of  man. 

In  his  first  published  work,  Addresses  on  Religion 
to  its  Cultured  Despisers ,  Schleiermacher  speaks  as 
one  who  has  gone  through  the  Aufkldrung,  but 
who  nevertheless  remains  in  possession  of  a  genuine 
religious  experience.  The  epoch-making  character 
of  the  Addresses  consists  in  their  vindication  of  the 
uniqueness  of  religion  in  full  view  of  the  revolution 
wrought  in  theology  by  modern  science  and  phi¬ 
losophy.  There  were  at  the  time  (the  first  edition 
of  the  Addresses  is  dated  1799)  two  currents  of 
theological  rationalism,  the  one  waning,  the  other 
waxing.  The  first  was  that  of  the  natural  theol¬ 
ogy  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  regarded  the 
only  valid  element  in  religion  to  be  the  intellectual 
assent  to  the  existence  of  a  benevolent  Designer 
of  Nature.  This  doctrine  had  just  been  shattered 
1  W.  Dilthey,  Leben  Schleiermacher' s,  pp.  12-86. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


77 


to  its  foundations  by  Kant’s  Critique  of  Pure  Rea¬ 
son,  and  on  its  ruins  there  was  being  erected  the 
moralistic  religion  of  Kant,  which  made  belief  in 
God  simply  the  necessary  postulate  of  morality 
and  measured  the  value  of  religion  solely  in  terms 
of  its  relation  to  moral  conduct. 

Against  these  views  Schleiermacher  asserts  that 
religion  is  neither  an  annex  of  science  nor  of  mo¬ 
rality.  “True  Science  is  a  perfect  intuition.  True 
Conduct  is  self-produced  culture  and  art.  True 
Religion  is  sense  and  taste  for  the  Infinite .” 1  The 
organ  of  religion  is  feeling  ( Gefiihl ).  This  feeling 
of  the  Infinite,  which  constitutes  the  essence  of 
religion,  exists  in  the  immediate  unity  of  self-con- 
sciousnes.1 2  In  this  immediate  feeling  sense  and 
the  object  are  one.3  The  aims  of  both  knowledge 
and  action  are  to  become  one  with  the  universe.4 
But  these  aims  are  attained  only  in  religion. 
When  we  feel  the  action  of  the  universe  upon  us  5 
this  immediate  presence  of  the  universe  in  the 
feeling  of  self-consciousness  is  religion.  It  is  the 
presence  of  God  in  us,  the  meeting-point  of 
the  universal  Life  with  the  individual  life.6  The 
feeling  of  being  an  I  and  the  pious  feeling  are  one. 
The  God-consciousness  and  true  self-consciousness 
are  mutually  involved. 

1  Reden ,  second  edition  of  Schwarz’s  reissue  of  the  original 
fourth  edition,  p.  37. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  40.  3  Ibid.  4  Ibid. ,  p.  41. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  45.  6  Ibid.,  p.  40. 


;8  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


This  feeling  of  the  oneness  of  self  with  the  uni¬ 
verse  might,  if  not  further  defined,  involve  a  purely 
naturalistic  or  even  materialistic  pantheism. 

But  Schleiermacher  holds  that  it  is  not  preemi¬ 
nently  with  the  outer  universe  that  one  is  united 
in  feeling.  It  is  with  the  world  of  humanity, 
which  in  all  its  countless  individual  forms  is  the 
expression  of  God’s  life.1  The  feeling  for  the 
totality  of  humanity,  as  divine  in  origin,  and 
the  reverence  for  every  man,  as  a  unique  mani¬ 
festation  of  the  divine  life,  constitute  religion.2 
Hence  the  true  fountain  of  religion  is  history. 
Religion  is  historic,  and  history  is  the  expression 
of  religion.  Science  and  morals  are  both  historic 
manifestations,  but  they  do  not  present  that  unity 
of  self  and  the  universe  which  religion  alone  offers. 
Hence  science  and  morals  are  both  incomplete  and 
dependent  on  religion. 

The  unity  of  self  with  the  universe  is  realized 
where  the  living  God  is  present  in  feeling,  and  the 
conceptual  terms  in  which  we  are  to  think  of  this 
experience  are  secondary  and  dependent  on  the 
mental  characteristics  of  the  individual.  God  is 
directly  present  in  feeling,  but  not  in  the  concept.3 
When  we  speak  of  the  relation  of  God  to  the  in¬ 
dividual  we  think  of  him  as  personal.  When  we 
think  of  the  limitations  of  human  personality  and 
the  contradictions  involved  in  applying  this  con¬ 
ception  to  God  we  think  of  him  as  impersonal  or, 
1  Reden ,  pp.  65,  67,  etc.  2  Ibid. ,  pp.  68,  69.  3  Ibid. ,  p.  87. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


better,  as  super-personal.  Schleiermacher  says  that 
the  manner  in  which  a  man  may  think  of  person¬ 
ality  as  applied  to  God  will  depend  on  the  power 
of  his  creative  imagination  (. Phantasie )  to  envisage 
ideas  and  on  his  dialectic  conscience.1  He  regards 
the  imagination  as  the  highest  power  of  the  human 
mind,  and  the  concreteness  of  one’s  idea  of  God  as 
the  result  of  the  balance  established  between  imag¬ 
ination  and  the  dialectic  or  critical  faculty. 

B.  The  Idea  of  God  in  the  Dialectic . 

Schleiermacher  defines  Dialectic  as  the  art  of 
philosophizing,  the  art  of  grounding  knowledge, 
etc.2  Dialectic  is  both  Logic  and  Metaphysic.3 
Logic  without  Metaphysic  is  not  a  science,  but  a 
mere  technical  art.  Metaphysic  without  Logic  is 
capricious  and  fantastic  in  its  procedure  and 
results. 

Knowledge  is  the  unity  of  Thought  and  Being, 
of  the  Ideal  and  the  Real.  The  test  of  truth  is 
the  correspondence  of  thought  with  a  real  being.4 
But  the  unity  of  thought  and  being  does  not  lie 
in  an  indifference-point  outside  consciousness. 

“  Knowledge  is  grounded  in  the  identity  of  the 
thinking  subjects.”5  “In  our  self-consciousness 
both  Thinking  and  Being  are  given.”  6  Our  first 
step  in  grounding  knowledge,  then,  will  be  to  find 

1  Reden ,  p.  108,  etc.  2  Dicilektik ,  p.  8. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  7  ;  see  also  Beilage  C,  i.-vi.,  and  D,  i-vi. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  386.  5  Ibid.,  p.  48.  6  Ibid.,  p.  53. 


8o  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


within  the  mind  the  point  of  contact  of  thinking 
and  being.  Schleiermacher  begins  his  investiga¬ 
tion  by  defining  the  objective  factor.  “  The  ob¬ 
ject  of  thinking  is  the  inner  impulse  from  which 
it  sets  out,  and  the  being  to  which  thinking,  as 
knowing,  shall  correspond  is  not  something  outside 
of  us,  but  within — the  inner  will-movement .  ”  1  I 
shall  return  to  this  doctrine,  that  the  element  of 
objectivity  lies  in  the  will,  after  considering  the 
manner  in  which  Schleiermacher  unites  the  ideal 
and  the  real  in  the  subject  regarded  as  knowing. 
There  are  two  functions  of  the  self — the  intellec¬ 
tual  and  the  organic.  The  former  is  the  source  of 
unity  in  knowledge,  the  latter  of  chaotic  manifold¬ 
ness.2  The  two  functions  are  mutually  depen¬ 
dent.8  Knowledge  is  the  product  of  their  inter¬ 
action.  “  Knowledge  is  that  thinking  which  can 
be  posited  in  like  manner  as  having  issued  from 
the  organic  or  the  intellectual  function.”4  The 
intellectual  function  brings  unity  into  the  or¬ 
ganic  manifoldness  under  the  form  of  concepts. 
A  given  concept  expresses  a  multiplicity  of  judg¬ 
ments.  But  inasmuch  as  judgments  are  poten¬ 
tially  infinite,  we  can  never  complete  the  series  of 

1  Dialektik ,  p.  49.  “  The  purposeful  will  makes  actual  the 

potential  personality.”  (See  P.  Schmidt,  Spinoza  und  Schleier¬ 
macher ,  p.  172.) 

2  Dialeklik,  p.  63.  3  Ibid.,  p.  57. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  52.  As  we  shall  see,  they  are  at  bottom  the  same. 
“  Organization  is  the  mental  life  opened  towards  the  outer 
world.”  {Ibid.,  p.  387.) 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION  8l 


judgments  which  would  make  up  the  perfect 
sphere  of  concepts,  and  hence  we  can  never  attain 
a  conception  of  the  absolute  unity  of  Being.1 

If  both  factors  of  knowledge  lie  within  the  indi¬ 
vidual  subject,  the  objective  validity  of  knowledge 
must  be  dependent  on  an  assumed  identity  of 
reason  in  all  subjects.  And  this  is  Schleiermacher’s 
position.  “  The  concepts  which  are  contained  in 
the  system  of  knowledge  develop  in  every  reason 
in  like  manner  on  occasion  of  organic  affections.”2 
The  idea  of  knowledge  involves  a  community  of 
experience  and  principles,  and  hence  an  identity 
of  reason  as  well  as  of  organization  in  all.3 

We  have  seen  that,  within  the  individual  subject, 
there  is  a  mutual  relation  of  ideal  and  real  ex¬ 
pressed  in  the  interdependence  of  the  intellectual 
and  organic  functions.  But  the  community  of 
the  organic  activities  of  different  individuals  in¬ 
volves  a  being  outside  of  us.  Without  a  stability 
of  the  organic  factor  in  experience  judgment  would 
be  impossible.  Therefore  judgment  depends  on 
the  identity  of  the  organic  functions  of  the  subject 
with  a  being  outside  ourselves.4  In  other  words, 
the  individual  subject  does  not  by  itself  offer  a 
complete  identity  of  the  ideal  and  the  real,  and 
we  require  a  transcendental  basis  for  knowledge 
in  the  shape  of  an  over-individual  stimulus  to 
organic  activity.  The  unity  of  the  intellectual 

1  Dialektik,  pp.  86,  87.  3  Ibid.,  p.  66. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  107.  4  Ibid.,  p.  125. 

6 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


82 


and  organic  functions  in  judgment  depends  on  a 
higher  unity.  We  can  have  no  concept  of  this  ab¬ 
solute  unity.  For  the  concept  arises  through  the 
union  of  judgments.  But  nothing  can  be  predicated 
of  the  highest  subject.  It  is,  indeed,  the  unity  of 
the  system  of  judgments,  but  it  is  above  them.1 
For  the  system  of  judgments  remains  incomplete. 

We  have  now  seen  that  knowledge  involves  a 
transcendental  ground.  Equally  so  does  willing2 
(volition).  It  is  first  in  willing  that  we  reach  a 
genuine  conviction  as  distinguished  from  mere 
thinking  or  opinion.3  Persistent  willing  demands  a 
coherence  of  being  with  willing.  Willing,  through 
its  concept  of  an  end,  is  thinking.  Thinking, 
through  the  clearness  of  its  free  productivity,  is 
willing.4  “  In  thinking,  the  being  of  things  is 
posited  in  us  in  our  manner.  In  willing,  our  being 
is  posited  in  things  in  our  manner.”  The  identity 
of  thinking  and  willing  supplies  the  subjective 
unity  of  intellectual  and  organic  functions,  and 
at  the  same  time  gives  us  the  transcendental  basis 
of  both  knowledge  and  action. 

The  relative  identity  of  thinking  and  willing  is 
a  unity  of  feeling  ( Gefiihl ),  or  immediate  self -con¬ 
sciousness?  This  immediate  feeling  differs  from 
the  reflective  self-consciousness  or  consciousness 
of  the  /,  which  arises  from  the  original  feeling, 

1  Dialektik,  pp.  125,  135,  etc.  3  Ibid.,  p.  148. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  150.  4  Ibid.,  p.  428. 

6  Ibid. ,  pp.  151,  429. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION  83 


and  it  also  differs  from  sensation  ( Empfindung ), 
which  is  the  subjectively  personal  element  in  a 
determinate  moment  of  consciousness.1  In  re¬ 
flection  our  consciousness  is  divided  into  the 
opposing  moments  of  thinking  and  willing,  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  express  antithetical  but  com¬ 
plementary  aspects  of  our  relation  to  being.  But 
the  immediate  self-feeling  exists  before  the  oppo¬ 
sitions  develop,  and  these  oppositions  are  again 
resolved  in  the  immediacy  of  self-feeling.  Never¬ 
theless  our  consciousness  could  not  be  this  aboli¬ 
tion  of  opposites  if  we  were  not  conditioned  and 
determined  by  something  above  the  opposites — 
viz.,  by  the  transcendental  ground  itself.2  Hence 
the  transcendental  basis  of  knowledge  and  action, 
the  identity  of  thought  and  being,  is  presupposed 
in  every  movement  of  our  consciousness.  It  lies 
involved  in  the  immediate  unity  of  our  feeling. 
In  feeling  we  are  directly  related  to  the  primal 
ground  of  things3  ( Urgrund ).  Will  and  feeling  are 
coordinated  as  the  two  aspects  of  the  fundamental 
being  of  our  determinate  existence,4  but  will  seems 
to  be  the  primitive  element  common  to  subject 
and  object.  Feeling  is  the  subjective  identity  of 
the  receptive  and  the  spontaneous  ( i.e .,  of  think¬ 
ing  and  being).5  This  identity,  objectively  con- 

1  Dialektik ,  p.  429.  3  Ibid.,  p.  430. 

2  Ibid. ,  p.  430.  4  Ibid. ,  p.  473. 

6  Schleiermacher  seems  to  identify  the  antithesis  of  thinking 
and  being  with  that  of  intellectual  and  organic.  But  receptive 


84  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


sidered  as  knowledge,  is  intuition.  Another  form 
of  the  antithesis  is  that  of  representative  and 
prefigurative  ( abbildlich  und  vorbildlich )  think¬ 
ing,  which  have  their  unity  in  self-conscious¬ 
ness.1 

The  outcome  of  this  search  for  a  transcendental 
ground  of  knowledge  and  action  is  the  discovery 
of  a  God-consciousness  in  immediate  feeling  or 
intuition .  We  have  reached  by  a  more  toilsome 
route  the  central  doctrine  of  the  Addresses  on 
Religion .  There  is  a  religious  feeling  or  intuition 
immediately  involved  in  self-feeling.2  But  we 
must  not  suppose  for  an  instant  that  the  intuition 
of  the  Godhead  is  an  isolated  experience.  The 
very  fact  that  it  is  the  implicate  of  self-feeling 
precludes  such  an  assumption.  We  intuit  or 
feel  the  Godhead  only  in  and  with  the  entire 
system  of  intuitions.3  The  Godhead  is  just  as  in¬ 
conceivable  as  knowledge.  For  it  is  the  basis  of 
knowledge.4  Hence  it  is  as  certain  as  knowl¬ 
edge.5  The  system  of  knowledge  gives  us  the 

and  spontaneous  do  not  mean  quite  the  same  for  him  as  organic 
and  intellectual.  The  intellectual  function  is  predominantly 
spontaneous,  and  the  organic  predominantly  receptive.  (See 
W.  Bender,  Sc  hleier  mac  tier's  Theologie,  I.,  p.  28.)  Thinking 
( Denken )  of  course  includes  both  knowing  and  willing  (Er- 
kennen  und  Wolleii).  (See  Bender,  op.  cit.,  p.  32  ff.) 

1  Dialektik ,  pp.  523,  531,  etc.  2  Ibid. ,  p.  430. 

3  “  Intuition  is  the  identity  of  perception  and  construction.” 
(Ibid.,  p.  319-) 

4  Ibid.,  p.  322. 


6  Ibid.,  p.  320. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION  85 


intuition  of  God.1  Our  knowledge  of  God  can 
only  be  completed  with  the  completion  of  our 
view  of  the  world  ( Weltanschauung ),  and  the  two 
develop  together.2  In  the  development  of  this 
two-sided  system  of  knowledge  the  system  of 
concepts  forms  the  permanent  framework,  the 
system  of  judgments  (empirically  determined) 
the  living  process  of  filling-in.3 

The  idea  of  God  and  the  idea  of  the  world  are 
correlative  and  mutually  dependent.4  Both  are 
transcendent  and  involved  in  knowledge  and 
action,  but  in  different  senses.  The  idea  of  the 
world  lies  outside  our  real  knowledge,  but  as 
the  idea  of  a  completed  system  of  knowledge  it  is 
the  basis  of  our  progress  in  knowledge.  In  other 
words,  the  idea  of  the  world  is  that  of  the  com¬ 
pletion  of  our  progressively  realized  knowledge. 
It  is,  as  Kant  would  say,  a  regulative  ideal,  and 
is  not  directly  present  in  any  single  act  of  know¬ 
ing.5  The  idea  of  the  world  is  the  transcendental 
terminus  ad  quern  of  knowledge.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  idea  of  God,  as  the  unity  of  thought  and 
being,  is  directly  involved  in  every  act  of  knowl¬ 
edge  and  will.  It  is  the  transcendental  unity  of 
life  which  makes  possible  every  step  in  our  lives. 
The  idea  of  God  is  the  transcendental  terminus  a 
quo  and  the  principle  of  the  possibility  of  knowl- 

1  Dialektik ,  p.  328.  2  Ibid.,  p.  322.  3  Ibid.,  p.  325. 

4  “  Kein  Gott  ohne  Welt,  so  wie  keine  Welt  ohne  Gott.” 
{Ibid.,  p.  432.)  See  also  p.  162.  6  Ibid.,  p.  164. 


86  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


edge  in  itself.1  The  world  is  a  limit  to  conception 
( Begriffsgrenze ).  God  is  the  unity  which  alone 
makes  any  conception  as  well  as  any  action 
possible.2  The  world  is  a  unity  including  all 
opposites.  God  is  a  unity  excluding  and  tran¬ 
scending  all  opposites.3  He  is  Life,  developing 
opposites  out  of  itself,  but  since  it  is  timeless,  not 
going  out  of  itself.4  We  cannot  say  more  than  that 
God  and  the  world  are  to  be  posited  as  existing 
in  mutual  relations.5  We  cannot  identify  the  two 
ideas.  On  the  other  hand,  we  know  nothing  of 
God’s  being  beyond  the  world  or  in  himself.6 
God  dwells  in  us  in  our  ideas  and  in  our  con¬ 
science.  His  inborn  presence  in  us  constitutes 
our  specific  essence,  for  without  ideas  and  with¬ 
out  conscience  we  should  sink  to  the  level  of  the 
brutes.7  Conscience  involves  a  general  agreement. 
Law  is  the  expression  of  this  agreement,  i.e.,  of 
conscience.  Law  must  be  grounded  in  an  abso¬ 
lute  subject.  God,  as  Creator,  is  the  Law-giver .8 
As  source  of  the  world-order  he  is  Providence. 
Law  is  intelligence  conceived  as  power.9  God,  as 
Law-giver,  is  the  author  of  the  fixed  forms  of 
existence,  i.e.,  he  is  Creator.  The  expression 
Providence  is  not  entirely  adequate,  but  we  may 


i 

a 

s 

4 


Dialektik,  p. 
Ibid.,  p.  526. 
Ibid. ,  p.  433. 
Ibid. ,  p.  531. 


164.  5  Ibid.,  p.  165. 

6  Ibid. ,  p.  154. 

7  Ibid.,  pp.  154-6. 

8  Ibid. ,  pp.  427,  519-22. 
9  Ibid.,  p.  474. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION  87 


say  that  God,  as  Creator  and  Providence  is  at  the 
same  time  Law-giver.1  God  is  the  absolutely 
free  subject — free ,  because  he  is  self-determined. 
For  freedom  is  self-development,  self-expression.2 
Every  living  being  is,  in  some  measure,  free,  and 
God  is  absolute  freedom  since  he  is  Absolute  Life. 

Schleiermacher  regards  Time  and  Space  not  as 
illusions,  but  as  images  respectively  of  the  ideal 
and  the  real  ( i.e .,  of  thinking  and  being)  in  the 
subject.3  Matter  he  defines  as  the  chaotic  mate¬ 
rial  of  consciousness,  as  that  which  fills  space  and 
time.4 

The  Dialectic  was  never  completed,  and  Schleier- 
macher’s  metaphysical  treatment  of  the  idea  of 
God  remains  unfinished. 

C.  The  Doctrine  of  God  in  the  “  Christian  Faith." 

Schleiermacher’s  Christliche  Glaiibe  is  a  system¬ 
atic  exposition  of  the  contents  and  implications  of 
the  specifically  Christian  religious  experience;  in 
other  words,  a  scientific  account  of  the  religious 
consciousness  as  manifested  in  the  Christian. 
This  exposition  falls  into  two  parts.  The  first 
part  develops  the  principles  of  the  pious  self-con¬ 
sciousness  in  so  far  as  this  is  present  in  man  uni¬ 
versally,  and  hence  is  presupposed  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian.  The  scope  of  the  first  part  corresponds  to 

1  Dialektik ,  p.  527.  3  Ibid . ,  p.  398. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  420-1.  4  Ibid.,  p.  140. 


88 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


that  of  the  old  natural  theology  or  to  what  we  to¬ 
day  call  the  general  philosophy  of  religion.  The 
second  part  expounds  the  principles  of  the  specif¬ 
ically  Christian  consciousness.  The  Addresses  on 
Religion  discovered  the  root  of  religion  to  be  the 
feeling  of  dependence.  The  Dialectic  showed  us 
that  the  objective  unity  of  consciousness  and  be¬ 
ing,  which  is  presupposed  in  the  knowledge  and 
action  of  the  individual  subject,  is  presented  in 
religious  feeling.  The  Christian  Faith  takes  this 
universal  feeling  of  absolute  dependence,  i.e.,  the 
religious  feeling,  as  its  starting-point,  and  ex¬ 
pounds  the  nature  of  God  in  “  relation  to  this  feel¬ 
ing.”  The  Divine  Essence,  says  Schleiermacher, 
is  in  itself  inexpressible,  and  the  Divine  attri¬ 
butes,  as  we  conceive  them,  express  only  moments 
of  the  pious  self-consciousness.1 

The  feeling  of  absolute  dependence — the  relig¬ 
ious  feeling — arises  in  the  meeting  together  of 
self-consciousness  and  object-consciousness.2  The 
feeling  of  dependence  is  most  complete  when 
we  identify  ourselves  with  the  world,  when  we 
see  all  as  one.  In  this  complete  oneness  of 
finite  being  there  is  posited  the  most  perfect  and 
universal  connection  of  nature.3  Hence  creatio?i , 
the  idea  of  which  expresses  the  absolute  depen¬ 
dence  of  the  world  on  God,  must  be  the  timeless 
activity  which  issues  in  the  order  of  nature.4 

1  Christliche  Glaube ,  I.,  p.  259  ff. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  224.  3 Ibid.,  p.  227.  *Ibid.,  p.  199. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION  89 


The  fundamental  attribute  involved  in  the  feel¬ 
ing  of  absolute  dependence  is  the  Divine  Causal¬ 
ity}  This  absolute  causality  is,  with  reference  to 
its  character,  distinct  from  the  causality  of  nature. 
For  while  the  latter  occurs  in  time,  the  former  is 
eternal.  On  the  other  hand,  with  reference  to  its 
extent,  Divine  Causality  is  simply  the  whole  order 
of  nature.2  It  is  omnipotence.  When  we  compare 
God  with  finite  beings,  we  get  two  other  attri¬ 
butes,  viz.,  omnipresence  and  omniscience .  These 
express  respectively  the  spaceless  and  timeless 
nature  of  the  Divine  Causality.  For  the  idea  of 
causality,  which  the  feeling  of  absolute  depen¬ 
dence  calls  forth  in  us,  cannot  be  spatial  or  tem¬ 
poral.3  However,  the  spaceless  and  timeless  char¬ 
acter  of  omnipotence  is  better  expressed  by  say. 
ing  that  God’s  causality  is  inward,  living,  and 
absolutely  spiritual.4 

It  is  much  more  important  that  the  Divine 
Causality  shall  be  thought  as  absolutely  living 
than  that  a  similarity  shall  be  established  in  some 
specific  fashion  between  God  and  what  we  call 
“  mind  ”  in  ourselves.  For  the  latter  can  be  done 
only  through  an  infinite  process  of  approximation, 
since  there  can  be  no  receptivity  or  passivity  in 
God,  and  both  these  qualities  are  inherent  in  our 
minds.  The  only  kind  of  thinking  in  us  which 
is  relatively  independent  of  an  object  is  our  pur- 

1  Christliche  Glaube,  I.,  p.  261.  3  Ibid. ,  pp.  267-80. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  264-5.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  268,  291. 


9o 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


posive  or  end-forming  ( zweckbildende )  activity. 
The  greater  part  of  our  thinking  is  dependent 
on  the  presence  of  objects.  God’s  thinking  is 
entirely  of  the  former  or  purposive  kind.  But 
even  here  we  must  distinguish  between  God’s 
thinking  and  man’s.  We  cannot  say  that  in  God 
the  formation  of  a  purpose  comes  first  and  then 
later  its  execution.  For  the  Divine  Thinking  and 
the  Divine  Willing  are  absolutely  identical.1 

Schleiermacher  holds  that  the  Divine  foreknowl¬ 
edge  does  not  destroy  human  freedom,  since  the 
latter  is  the  expression  of  the  nature  of  the  self,2 
and  not  a  power  of  acting  arbitrarily. 

In  the  second  part  of  the  Christian  Faith  we 
have  a  statement  of  the  Divine  attributes  which 
are  involved  in  the  specifically  Christian  con¬ 
sciousness.  The  presupposition  here  is  the  recog¬ 
nition  of  the  reality  of  both  evil  and  sin  and  of 
the  need  for  redemption.  Evil  is  the  punishment 
for  sin,  but  sin  is  social  in  its  effects,  and  hence 
the  evil  which  befalls  the  individual  cannot  be 
deduced  from  his  own  sin.3  Sin  is  our  own  act. 
Every  sinful  impulse  is,  on  the  one  side,  the 
expression  of  a  sensuous  nature-impulse  which 
involves  the  Divine  Causality.4  On  the  other 
side,  sin  is  a  turning  away  from  God,  a  denial 
of  the  God-consciousness  or  of  the  consciousness 
of  the  Divine  Will  in  regard  to  the  particular 

1  Christliche  Glaube,  I.,  pp.  292-3.  3 Ibid.,  p.  430. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  304.  4  Ibid.,  p.  452. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


91 


impulse.1  God  is  indeed  the  cause  of  the  natural 
impulses  from  which  sin  arises.  On  the  other 
hand,  every  impulse  can  be  brought  in  relation  to 
God’s  will.  Hence  sin  is  man’s  own  deed.  But 
it  can  exist  only  where  salvation  is  possible.  The 
consciousness  of  sin  by  itself  is  an  abstraction.2 
In  so  far  as  we  can  never  have  a  consciousness  of 
grace  without  a  consciousness  of  sin  we  must 
assert  that  the  being  of  sin  is  ordained  together 
with  the  grace  of  God.3 

The  consideration  of  the  state  of  sin  in  relation 
to  the  state  of  grace  gives  rise  to  the  ideas  of  the 
Divine  Holiness  and  Justice.  Divine  Holiness  is 
that  Divine  Causality  by  virtue  of  which  in  the  com¬ 
mon  life  of  men  the  conscience  is  posited  together 
with  the  need  of  salvation.4  Hence  the  conscience 
is  social,  and  the  Divine  Holiness  is  the  Divine 
legislative  causality  in  the  common  life.  Divine 
Justice  is  the  Divine  Causality  in  so  far  as  it  has 
ordained  a  connection  between  sin  and  evil  in  the 
common  life.  Hence  Divine  Justice  is  social,  not 
individual.5  In  the  Christian  life  there  is  no 
general  consciousness  of  God  which  does  not  in¬ 
clude  a  relation  to  Christ  and  no  relation  to  the 
Saviour  which  is  not  connected  with  the  general 
God-consciousness.  When,  through  the  efficacy 
of  salvation,  we  become  conscious  of  our  restored 
fellowship  with  God  and  refer  this  work  of  sal- 

1  Christliche  Glaube,  I.,  p.  453.  'Ibid.,  p.  438. 

3  Ibid. ,  p.  439.  4  Ibid.,  p.  460.  5  Ibid.,  p.  465. 


92 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


vation  back  to  the  Divine  Causality,  we  assume 
a  Divine  Gover7iment  of  the  world,  manifesting 
itself  in  zvisdom  and  love  1  The  Divine  Love  is 
that  attribute  by  virtue  of  which  the  Divine 
Essence  communicates  itself  and  is  known  in  the 
work  of  salvation.2  Love  is  God’s  very  being  in 
relation  to  men,  and  hence  it  differs  from  all  the 
other  attributes.3  For  in  the  first  part  of  the 
Glaubenslehre  the  entire  Divme  Activity  or  Caus¬ 
ality  was  assumed  and  discussed  without  a  motive 
for  its  being.  Love,  manifested  in  the  work  of 
salvation,  supplies  this  motive.  All  men  are 
objects  of  the  Divme  Love ,  but  it  is  not  realized 
in  all.4 

The  Divine  Wisdom  is  the  expression  of 
love.  Wisdom  is  the  principle  which  orders  and 
determines  the  world  for  the  Divine  self-commu¬ 
nication  in  the  work  of  salvation.  The  Divine 
Wisdom  is  the  highest  Essence  ( Wesen )  in  its  abso¬ 
lutely  simple  and  originally  perfect  self-exposition 
and  communication.5  The  Divine  Wisdom  is  the 
ground  by  virtue  of  which  the  world,  as  the 
theatre  of  redemption,  is  also  the  absolute  reve¬ 
lation  of  the  highest  being,  and  consequently 
good.6 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  says  Schleier- 
macher,  expresses  the  union  of  the  Divine  Es- 

1  Christliche  Glaube ,  II.,  pp.  507-11.  4  Ibid.,  p.  515. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  513.  6  Ibid.,  p.  521. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  517.  6  Ibid.,  p.  523. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


93 


sence  with  human  nature  in  Christ  and  in  the 
Spirit  of  the  Church.  It  is  not  a  philosopheme, 
but  is  the  expression  of  the  Christian  conscious¬ 
ness,  the  touchstone  of  Christian  doctrine,  al¬ 
though  not  in  a  wholly  satisfactory  form. 

2.  Schleiermacher s  Relations  to  Spinoza ,  Kant , 

Fichte,  a?id  Schelling. 

Schleiermacher  first  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Spinoza’s  system  through  Jacobi’s  Letters  on  Spi¬ 
noza.  In  his  commentary  on  the  latter  work,  al¬ 
though  confined  to  Jacobi’s  quotations  for  a  direct 
knowledge  of  Spinoza,  he  shows  a  much  finer 
understanding  of  Spinoza’s  system  than  Jacobi.1 
Schleiermacher  always  spoke  of  Spinoza  with  en¬ 
thusiasm,  and  he  has  been  called  a  Spinozist. 
But  while  there  are  important  points  of  contact 
in  the  two  systems,  there  are  equally  important 
points  of  divergence.  Schleiermacher  shares 
Spinoza’s  idea  and  love  of  the  One.  The  Infinite 
is  not  outside  the  world  of  phenomena.  On  the 
contrary,  the  latter  exist  within  the  Infinite  One. 
The  latter  is  the  completion  of  the  series  of  con¬ 
ditioned  existences,  and  not  something  separated 
from  them.  The  Infinite  exists  in  the  finite.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Infinite  One  of  Schleiermacher 
is  a  living  Spirituality ,  dynamically  conceived,  in 
which  thought  holds  the  primacy,  whereas  Spi- 

1  See  Dilthey,  Denkmale  Schleiermacher  s,  pp.  64-9. 


94 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


noza’s  Absolute  is  the  static  indifference-point  of 
an  infinite  number  of  attributes,  of  which  two, 
thought  and  extension,  are  known  to  us.  Moreover, 
Schleiermacher’s  most  original  and  important  phil¬ 
osophical  doctrine,  that  of  the  worth  of  individ¬ 
uality,  separates  him  from  Spinoza.  Whilst  the 
latter  holds  that  Body  and  Soul  are  related  only  in 
and  through  the  Divine  substance,  Schleiermacher 
regards  every  human  individual  as  a  unique  mani¬ 
festation  of  the  unity  of  the  ideal  and  the  real,  of 
thought  and  being.  Hence  human  individuality 
is  with  him  a  sacred  and  significant  manifestation 
of  the  Absolute.1  There  is  an  inconsistency  be¬ 
tween  Spinoza’s  conception  of  the  Absolute  and 
his  recognition  of  the  reality  of  the  individual. 
For  Spinoza  determination,  and  therefore  individ¬ 
uation,  is  negation.  For  Schleiermacher  individu¬ 
ation  is  affirmation.  Here  he  takes  up  Leibnitz’s 
doctrine  of  the  positive  reality  of  the  monads  as 
mirrors  of  the  universe,  but  he  rejects  their  ab¬ 
solute  independence  of  one  another,  and  sets  up 
instead  a  dynamic  unity. 

Plato  and  Kant  were  Schleiermacher’s  greatest 
philosophical  masters.  Schleiermacher  strives  to 
be  true  to  the  spirit  of  the  Critical  Philosophy, 
while  purging  it  of  its  inconsistencies,  and  infus¬ 
ing  into  it  the  spirit  of  Plato.  He  is  a  more 
sympathetic  and  appreciative  disciple  of  Kant 

^ee  Dilthey,  Leben  Schleiermacher' s,  pp.  147-52,  and  P. 
Schmidt,  Spinoza  und  Schleiermacher . 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


95 


than  either  Fichte,  Schelling,  or  Hegel.  Schleicr- 
macher  rejects  Kant’s  moral  postulate  as  to  the 
necessity  of  uniting  virtue  and  happiness,  and  his 
consequent  inference  as  to  the  necessity  of  an 
omnipotent  Being  outside  the  world,  who  shall 
heal  the  breach  existing  between  them  in  this  life. 
Schleiermacher  accepts  the  negative  results  of  the 
Kantian  dialectic,  and  strives  to  find  within  the 
limits  of  experience,  as  these  are  defined  by  criti¬ 
cism,  a  principle  by  virtue  of  which  the  two  Kantian 
dualisms — of  sense  and  understanding  within  the 
individual  subject,  and  of  thought  and  being  within 
the  cosmos — can  be  overcome.  Such  a  principle 
he  finds  in  the  synthetic  unity  of  the  individual 
consciousness.  Kant’s  doctrine  is  that  this  syn¬ 
thetic  unity  has  an  over-individual  origin,  that  it 
is  transcendentally  involved  in  knowledge,  but 
cannot  be  empirically  verified  in  the  experience 
of  the  finite  self.  Schleiermacher,  guided  by  the 
attempt  of  Kant  in  the  Critique  of  Judgment  to 
find  a  solution  of  his  two  dualisms  in  the  imme¬ 
diate  unity  of  aesthetic  feeling,  endeavours  to  dis¬ 
cover  the  actual  presence  of  such  an  immediate 
self-consciousness  or  feeling  of  unity  in  every  act 
of  knowledge  and  volition.  In  this  attempt  he 
was  influenced  by  the  current  idea  of  an  intel¬ 
lectual  intuition .  Schleiermacher’s  doctrine  of 
self-feeling  or  the  immediate  self-consciousness  is 
the  discovery  of  the  actual  presence  of  the  syn¬ 
thetic  unity  of  consciousness  in  the  life  of  the 


96  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


empirical  /.  His  doctrine  that  the  transcendental 
ground  of  existence  is  revealed  in  this  immediate 
feeling,  is  the  restatement  of  the  Kantian  trans¬ 
cendental  unity  of  consciousness  in  terms  of  the 
felt-unity  of  the  actual  self.  The  God  of  Schleier- 
macher  is  the  transcendental  unity  of  Kant  dis¬ 
covered  to  be  the  condition  of  the  unity  of 
conscious  life  in  the  finite  self.1 

Fichte  and  Schleiermacher  had  their  common 
starting-point  in  Kant.  Fichte’s  doctrine  of  the 
harmony  of  subject  and  object,  the  I  and  the  not- 
f  was  congenial  to  Schleiermacher.  He  was  also 
in  agreement  with  Fichte’s  conception  of  the  will 
as  the  centre  of  the  individual  /,  and  Fichte’s  en¬ 
tire  genetic  method  which  started  from  the  finite 
I  appealed  to  him.  But  Schleiermacher  was  not 
willing  to  go  with  Fichte  in  his  reduction  of  the 
entire  outer  world  to  an  illusory  reflection  of  the 
activity  of  the  /.  Moreover,  as  time  went  on,  the 
important  differences  in  their  conceptions  of  in¬ 
dividuality  came  to  the  front.  Fichte  regards  in¬ 
dividuality  as  a  limitation, of  the  Absolute,  and 
holds  that  the  nearer  one  comes  to  the  Absolute 
the  more  does  one’s  individuality  retreat  into  the 
background.  Schleiermacher,  on  the  other  hand, 
regards  the  genesis  of  the  individual  as  a  free  and 
self-expressive  act  of  the  Absolute,  and  he  carries 
the  finite  individual  into  the  holy  of  holies  of  the 

1  See  Dilthey,  Leben  Schleiermacher' s,  pp.  88-128,  and  J.  Gotts- 
chick,  Ueber  Schleiermacher' s  Verhaltniss  gegen  Kant. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


97 


religious  life.1  In  Dilthey’s  admirable  phrase, 
Schleiermacher  joins  together  the  self-intuition  of 
Fichte  and  the  world-intuition  of  Spinoza  in  the 
original  coherence  of  his  own  system.2 

Schleiermacher  was  influenced  by  Schelling’s 
Philosophy  of  Nature,  particularly  by  his  doctrine 
of  opposites.  No  doubt,  too,  his  own  philosophical 
reflection  was  stimulated  by  Schelling’s  doctrine 
of  the  identity  of  thought  and  being.  But  it 
would  be  a  great  error  to  regard  Schleiermacher’s 
doctrine  of  identity  as  an  offshoot  from  Schell¬ 
ing’s.  For  in  the  Addresses  on  Religion  Schleier¬ 
macher  had  already  struck  out  on  an  independent 
way  to  the  unification  of  the  ideal  and  the  real. 
Schelling’s  intellectual  intuition  is  exclusive  and 
aristocratic.  Schleiermacher’s  union  with  the  Ab¬ 
solute  in  the  immediacy  of  feeling  is  universally 
human  and  democratic. 

3.  The  Significance  of  Schleiermacher  s  Conception 

of  God. 

Schleiermacher’s  exposition  of  the  originality 
and  uniqueness  of  the  religious  life  in  man  and 
his  doctrine  of  immediate  self-consciousness  or 
the  feeling  of  unity  as  the  source  of  religion  in 
the  individual  are  the  most  important  contribu¬ 
tions  towards  a  philosophy  of  religion  that  have 
been  made  in  modern  times.  While  he  vindicates 

'See  Dilthey,  op.  cit.y  p.  142.  2 Ibid.,  p.  354. 

7 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


98 

the  uniqueness  of  religion  he  does  not  separate 
it  from  the  general  life  of  the  self.  Religion  is 
the  meeting-place  of  self  and  world.  This  imme¬ 
diate  feeling  of  unity  or  fundamental  intuition  in 
which  the  religious  life  is  grounded  is  the  root  of 
the  distinctions  and  oppositions  which  arise  in  the 
analytical  processes  of  thought  and  volition,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  it  is  the  medium  in  which  these 
oppositions  and  distinctions  are  constantly  being 
transcended  in  the  onward  movement  of  life. 
“  Self-intuition  and  intuition  of  the  universe  are 
interchangeable  conceptions.”1  “The  universe 
is  like  man  in  that  in  both  activity  is  the  principal 
thing,  the  events  only  the  fleeting  results  of  it.”  2 

Hoffding  says  that,  inasmuch  as  the  reality  for 
us  consists  in  subjective  feeling  or  intuition, 
Schleiermacher  is  not  entitled  to  regard  any  doc¬ 
trines  as  more  than  symbols,  and  that  when  he  in¬ 
fers  from  the  existence  of  the  feeling  of  depen¬ 
dence  an  objective  cause  in  the  form  of  an  Abso¬ 
lute  Being,  he  has  gone  beyond  his  premises.3 
Hoffding  thinks  that  the  desire  to  mediate  be¬ 
tween  theology  and  philosophy  has  betrayed 
Schleiermacher  into  this  fallacy.  Hoffding  seems 
here  to  misunderstand  the  procedure  by  which 
Schleiermacher  reaches  his  doctrine  of  God  as  the 
transcendental  ground  of  existence.  Schleier¬ 
macher,  keeping  within  the  limits  of  the  critical 

^ilthey,,  Denkmale  Schleiermacher  s,  p.  118.  2  Ibid.,  p.  117. 

3  Hoffding,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  (Eng.  trans.),  p.  211. 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


99 


philosophy,  does  not  anywhere  regard  God  as  an 
individual,  objective  cause  in  the  same  sense  in 
which  we  speak  of  one  phenomenal  event  as  the 
cause  of  another.  God,  for  him,  is  the  under¬ 
lying  principle,  the  all-embracing  life  of  the 
phenomenal  universe.  God  transcends  the  single 
individual,  but  not  the  whole  system  of  individ¬ 
uals.  Schleiermacher’s  Absolute  is  not  separated 
from  the  universe.  He  does  not  hold  that  the 
Absolute  is  the  external  cause  of  the  feeling  of 
dependence  or  of  the  immediate  unity  of  our¬ 
selves  with  the  universe,  but  that  he  is  the  abso¬ 
lute  ground  of  these  feelings,  and  in  himself 
transcends  the  individual  life .  The  specific  at¬ 
tributes  of  God  are  indeed  symbols,  but  Schleier- 
macher  repeatedly  states  that  these  attributes  do 
not  at  all  account  for  the  unitary  being  of  God. 
They  only  express  aspects  of  his  relation  in  and 
to  us.  God  as  the  absolute  unity  is  the  conditio 
sine  qua  non  of  our  conscious  selfhood. 

It  is  clear  that  Schleiermacher  did  not  hold  to 
the  personality  of  God  in  the  traditional  sense.1 
He  did  not  see  how  the  transcendental  ground  of 
finite  personality  could  be  the  absolute  condition 
of  finite  personality  and  yet  be  described  as  per¬ 
sonal  in  itself.  But  Schleiermacher  held  to  what 
is  of  most  value  in  the  traditional  idea  of  person¬ 
ality.  God  is  for  him  the  absolute  ethical  Life,  the 

1  See  E.  Zeller,  Erinnerung  an  Schleiermacher  s  Lehre  von 
der  Personlichkeit  Gotles ,  in  his  Theologisches  Jahrbuch ,  Bd.  I. 


IOO  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


Infinite  and  Transcendent  Spirit.  Perhaps  a  re¬ 
constructed  notion  of  personality  will  in  the  future 
find  room  for  Schleiermacher’s  fundamental  ideas 
on  the  relation  of  God  and  man. 

Schleiermacher’s  emphasis  on  the  unity  and  un¬ 
changeableness  of  the  Divine  Causality  involves 
a  serious  difficulty  in  regard  to  the  ideas  of  free¬ 
dom  and  sin  in  the  individual.  He  is  a  determin- 
ist,  but  he  asserts  the  objective  reality  of  sin  and 
at  the  same  time  the  responsibility  of  the  individ¬ 
ual.  Sin,  he  says,  is  an  actual  destruction  of  na¬ 
ture.  The  reality  of  sin  involves  the  need  of  re¬ 
demption  as  a  historical  process.  But  neither  con¬ 
ception  is  consistent  with  Schleiermacher’s  doctrine 
of  the  absolute  unchangeableness  and  all-inclusive¬ 
ness  of  the  Divine  Causality.  Schleiermacher  un¬ 
derstands  by  human  freedom  the  self-determina¬ 
tion  of  the  unique  individual,  and  this  idea  of  the 
free  self,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  reality  of 
a  historical  process  of  redemption,  involves  defi¬ 
nitely  the  idea  of  God  as  a  self-conscious  unitary 
Life  who  at  once  expresses  himself  and  limits  him¬ 
self  in  the  production  of  finite  individuals.  This 
idea,  when  carried  out,  involves  further  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  distinctions  within  the  Divine  Nature  it¬ 
self  and  the  reconstruction  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Divine  unchangeableness.  The  latter  doctrine 
must  either  be  formulated  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
admit  a  real  living  and  progressive  relationship 
between  the  finite  individual  and  God,  or  it  must 


SCHLEIERMACHER’S  CONCEPTION 


IOI 


be  given  up  entirely.  Schleiermacher  does  not 
seem  to  have  apprehended  either  the  inherent 
difficulty  of  this  problem  or  the  great  import  of 
the  practical  and  religious  as  well  as  speculative 
interests  involved  in  its  solution.  His  own  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  unchangeableness  of  the  Divine 
Causality  approaches  very  closely  the  abstract 
and  motionless  Absolute  of  Spinoza.  It  tends  to 
become  a  modern  version  of  the  Eleatic  one. 
Schleiermacher’s  idea  of  God  can  be  corrected 
and  developed  from  his  own  starting-point.  He 
lays  stress  on  the  sacredness  and  worth  of  indi¬ 
viduality.  He  deduces  the  being  of  God  from 
the  feeling  of  dependence  within  the  finite  self- 
consciousness.  But  he  does  not  deal  adequately 
with  the  social  relations  of  the  individual  which 
are  involved  in  the  fact  of  knowledge  as  well  as  in 
action.  He  hints  that  the  individual  conscious¬ 
ness  of  change  and  the  feeling  of  absolute  de¬ 
pendence  are  the  encompassing  elements  of  self- 
consciousness  which  lead  the  individual  out  of 
himself.1  But  a  more  careful  consideration  of  the 
problem  implied  in  the  relation  of  the  individual 
to  the  social  factor  in  knowledge  and  volition 
would  make  room  for  a  more  concrete  conception 
of  God  and  one  more  closely  related  to  human 
personality. 

In  his  great  doctrine  of  the  ethical  worth  and  the 
philosophical  and  religious  significance  of  individu- 

1  Philosophische  Sittenlehre,  p.  243. 


102  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


ality  or  personal  uniqueness,  Schleiermacher  has 
raised  a  problem  slighted  by  his  great  contempo¬ 
rary  Hegel,  and  has  made  an  important  contribu¬ 
tion  to  its  solution.  If  we  are  to  attain  an  adequate 
philosophical  conception  of  God  we  must  start  from 
the  individual,  i.e. ,  we  must  start  from  Schleier- 
macher’s  point  of  departure.  But  there  is  another 
correlated  problem  which  was  first  seen  clearly  and 
handled  adequately  by  Hegel — that  of  the  objec¬ 
tive  or  institutional  spirit  embodied  in  the  work  of 
history.  These  two  ideas  of  the  individual  spirit 
and  the  objective  or  historical  spirit  are  comple¬ 
mentary,  and  the  future  philosophical  doctrine  of 
man  and  his  relation  to  God  must  be  built  on  them. 
Perhaps  just  now  we  need  most  a  reconsideration 
of  individuality. 

Hegel  possessed  a  concrete  wealth  of  knowl¬ 
edge  and  a  speculative  grasp  of  history  which 
Schleiermacher  did  not  have.  On  the  other  hand, 
Schleiermacher  was  a  virtuoso  in  the  appreciation 
of  personality  and  looked  much  further  and  more 
clearly  into  the  depths  of  the  personal  life.  His 
vindication  of  the  uniqueness  of  religion,  his 
estimate  of  the  philosophical  importance  of  the 
immediate  or  feeling-aspect  of  human  self-con¬ 
sciousness,  and  his  doctrine  of  individuality  are 
all  evidences  that  Schleiermacher  possessed  a 
keen,  subtle,  and  sympathetic  insight  into  the 
soul  of  man. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD. 

Mr.  Spencer’s  theory  of  the  ultimate  reality 
which  underlies  appearances  may  be  summed  up 
in  a  very  few  words.  The  object  of  philosophi¬ 
cal  investigation  is  ”  that  unascertained  some¬ 
thing  which  phenomena  and  their  relations  im¬ 
ply.”  1  The  title  of  the  first  section  of  his  First 
Principles  is  “  The  Unknowable.”  He  proceeds 
in  this  work  to  show  us  that  the  “  Unknowable  ” 
is  the  ground  of  meeting  and  reconciliation  of 
science  and  religion.  All  religions  have  their 
legitimate  sphere  “  in  that  nescience  which  must 
ever  remain  the  antithesis  to  science.”2  Nes¬ 
cience,  then,  being  the  subject-matter  of  religion, 
science  might  claim  that  by  its  own  methods  were 
disclosed  truths  hidden  to  religion.  This  is  true, 
Mr.  Spencer  says,  but  when  each  scientific  prin¬ 
ciple  is  pushed  to  its  legitimate  conclusion,  i.e.y 
when  it  is  raised  to  a  philosophical  principle,  it 
too  terminates  in  nescience.  Hence,  whether  we 
view  it  from  a  religious  or  a  scientific  point  of 
view,  **  the  Power  which  the  universe  manifests 

1  First  Principles ,  Fourth  Edition,  p.  17.  2  Ibid. 


104  MODERN  conceptions  of  god 


to  us  is  utterly  inscrutable/’1  “  The  mystery 
of  the  universe  is  not  a  relative,  but  an  absolute 
mystery.”2  These  statements  are  sufficiently 
clear,  but  they  at  once  start  certain  questions. 
It  is  positively  asserted  that  we  know  nothing 
about  the  ultimate  reality  except  that  it  is  abso¬ 
lutely  unknowable.  This  certainly  is  a  species  of 
knowledge  unique  in  kind.  How  can  we  know  that 
we  can  know  absolutely  nothing  about  a  conceiv¬ 
able  object  of  knowledge  ?  Mr.  Spencer’s  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  unknowability  of  the  ultimate  reality 
is,  so  far  as  it  goes,  very  positive.  And,  further¬ 
more,  he  knows  that  the  Unknowable  is  a  Power , 
“  an  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all 
things  proceed.  ’  ’  The  certainty  that  such  a  Power 
exists,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  its  nature  tran¬ 
scends  intuition,  is  the  certainty  towards  which 
intelligence  has  from  the  first  been  progressing.3 
Furthermore,  we  know  the  modes  in  which  this 
inscrtitable  Power  manifests  itself.  “  The  Power 
manifested  throughout  the  universe  distinguished 
as  material,  is  the  same  Power  which  in  ourselves 
wells  up  under  the  form  of  consciousness.  ”  4  N ot- 
withstanding  the  antinomies  which  Mr.  Spencer 
finds  to  be  involved  in  thinking  “  Infinite  ”  and 
Eternal,”  and  notwithstanding  that  the  deep¬ 
est  nescience  is  the  goal  of  human  thought,  he 
confidently  asserts  that  “  amid  the  mysteries 

1  First  Principles ,  p.  46.  3  Ibid. 

2  Ibid.  4  Principles  of  Sociology,  III.,  p.  171. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


105 


which  become  the  more  mysterious  the  more 
they  are  thought  about,  there  will  remain  (to 
man)  the  one  absolute  certainty,  that  he  is  ever 
in  the  presence  of  an  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy, 
from  which  all  things  proceed.”  1 

The  positiveness  of  this  conclusion,  when  com¬ 
pared  with  Mr.  Spencer’s  declaration  of  the  im¬ 
potence  of  knowledge  when  it  is  confronted  with 
ontological  problems,  is  sufficient  of  itself  to 
awaken  doubts  as  to  the  legitimacy  of  his  pro¬ 
cedure.  I  therefore  propose  to  inquire:  first, 
how  Mr.  Spencer  arrives  at  his  conclusion ;  sec¬ 
ond,  whether  his  procedure  is  consistent  and  his 
conclusion  valid;  and,  third,  if  the  second  inquiry 
receives  a  negative  answer,  how  may  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer’s  procedure  be  corrected. 

Mr.  Spencer  is  agreed  that  the  starting-point 
for  philosophy  lies  in  consciousness.  We  can 
never  reach  anything  which  is  absolutely  differ¬ 
ent  from  consciousness.  He  says  if  one  regard 
one’s  “  conceptions  of  these  activities  lying  be¬ 
yond  Mind,  as  constituting  knowledge,  he  is 
deluding  himself;  he  is  but  representing  these 
activities  in'  terms  of  Mind  and  can  never  do 
otherwise.”  2  Here  it  is  already  implied  that  the 
activities  outside  mind  are  absolutely  different 
from  the  activities  of  mind.  Hence  the  mind 
cannot  possibly  know  the  activities  which  lie  out- 

1  Principles  of  Sociology,  III.,  p.  175. 

2  Principles  of  Psychology,  Third  Edition,  I.,  p.  160. 


I06  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


side  itself.  It  is  at  once  assumed  that  the  nature 
of  extra-mental  reality  is  such  that  it  cannot  be 
known.  Mr.  Spencer  rehabilitates  the  “  Ding- 
an-sich,”  and  from  the  same  motive  which  orig¬ 
inally  led  Kant  to  set  it  up — fear  of  subjective 
idealism.  Mr.  Spencer  takes  it  for  granted  that 
if  there  is  a  real  world  beyond  the  human  mind, 
it  must  be  toto  ccelo  different  from  mind ;  other¬ 
wise  it  could  not  be  real.  This  is  an  entirely  un¬ 
warranted  assumption.  Kant,  having  set  up  the 

Ding-an-sich  ”  from  the  fear  of  being  regarded 
as  a  subjective  idealist,  at  once  drops  it  and  pro¬ 
ceeds  to  analyze  experience  in  itself.  Kant  sees 
that  the  “  Ding-an-sich”  can  have  no  place  in 
the  analysis  of  thought.  The  “  Thing-in-itself  ”  is 
a  vanishing  quantity  in  Kant's  analysis  of  experi¬ 
ence.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Spencer’s  chief 
concern  is  to  dump  the  contents  of  experience 
into  his  Unknowable.  Let  us  see  how  he  accom¬ 
plishes  this  end. 

Belief  in  an  external  world  is,  he  says,  a  result 
of  the  interaction  of  the  organism  and  the  en¬ 
vironment.  The  two  factors,  subject  and  object, 
imply  one  another,  and  their  relation  increasingly 
discloses  some  active  power  beyond  conscious¬ 
ness,  always  in  interaction  with  consciousness.1 
”  The  consciousness  of  self  and  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  not-self  are  the  elements  of  an  unceasing 
rhythm  in  consciousness.”2  We  have  thus,  in 
1  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  p.  505,  hh.  2  Ibid.,  p.  43S. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD  107 


Mr.  Spencer’s  theory,  two  factors,  mind  or  the 
subject,  and  something  external  which  acts  on 
mind.  Mind  at  once  reacts  on  the  “  something 
external,”  and  so  forms  a  conception  of  the  lat¬ 
ter.  But  the  action  of  mind  on  its  material 
seems  to  Mr.  Spencer  to  be  the  distortion  of  that 
material,  so  that  the  subject  never  attains  to  a 
true  conception  of  the  object.  Here  he  makes 
a  wholly  gratuitous  assumption  of  disharmony 
between  the  mind  and  its  material.  He  seeks 
to  prove  his  assumption  by  showing  that  the 
process  of  mind  in  knowing  is  such  that  it  cannot 
possibly  disclose  the  nature  of  Reality.  He  holds 
that  Reality  is  necessarily  impliedm  all  knowledge, 
but  is  not  revealed  therein.  This  is  “transfigured 
realism,”  and  leads  directly  to  the  hypothesis  of 
the  unknowability  of  the  objective  world. 

Mind  does  not  know  the  nature  of  Reality. 
What,  then,  is  the  relation  of  mind  to  the  total¬ 
ity  of  the  Real  ?  Mind  “  is  a  differentiated  and 
integrated  division  of  the  totality  of  being.”1 
We  can  think  of  matter  only  in  terms  of  mind. 
Nevertheless  matter  is  in  some  way  real,  and 
mind  is,  like  matter,  a  part  of  the  total  Real. 
But  the  admission  that  we  must  think  the  ex¬ 
ternal  world  in  terms  of  mind  is  strong  presump¬ 
tion  in  favor  of  the  theory  that  the  external  world 
is  likewise  mind  in  some  form.  Mr.  Spencer  re¬ 
plies  that  we  can  think  mind  only  in  terms  of 
1  Principles  of  Psychology ,  II.,  p.  505,  vv. 


108  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


matter.  He  overlooks  the  fact  that  matter  is 
one  of  the  categories  which  the  mind  uses  in 
thinking  its  own  experience.  The  theory  that 
matter  is  of  similar  nature  to  mind  explains  the 
knowability  of  the  external  world.  If  the  latter 
is  mental,  then,  when  the  subject  reads  that  world 
in  terms  of  its  own  consciousness,  it  is  not  falsify¬ 
ing  the  external  world,  but  finding  itself  therein. 
Throughout  his  treatment  of  the  epistemological 
problem  of  the  relation  of  knowledge  to  reality 
Mr.  Spencer  fails  to  clearly  distinguish  mind  in 
its  generic  capacity  and  the  individual  subject- 
mind.  His  reasoning  is  conclusive  against  solip- 
sistic  idealism,  and  he  is  justified  in  saying  that 
each  individual  mind  is  a  differentiated  and  in¬ 
tegrated  division  of  the  totality  of  being.  But 
he  has  by  no  means  shown  that  there  exists  any¬ 
thing  beyond  minds.  The  mental  characteristics 
of  our  external  world,  as  revealed  in  experience, 
may  justify  us  in  assuming  a  mind  in  some  form 
as  the  ultimate  Reality  from  which  individual 
minds  are  derived.  Mr.  Spencer  would  reply 
that  we  are  in  no  better  case  than  before,  since 
Mind  also  is  unknowable.”  1 
He  holds  that  the  progress  of  knowledge  con¬ 
sists  in  proceeding  from  concrete  mental  ex¬ 
perience  to  the  analysis  of  that  experience  into 
abstractions.  For  him,  abstract  hypothetical 
elements  constitute  the  reality  of  things,  of  which 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  p.  159. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


109 


concrete  experience  is  the  imperfect  manifesta¬ 
tion.  He  finds  the  reality  of  mind  in  the  sup¬ 
posed  primordial  elements  out  of  which  it  is  built 
up.  “  There  may  be  a  single  primordial  element 
of  consciousness.”  1  He  thinks  it  probable  “  that 
something  of  the  same  order  as  that  which  we 
call  a  nervous  shock  is  the  ultimate  unit  of  con¬ 
sciousness,  and  that  all  the  unlikenesses  among 
our  feelings  result  from  unlike  modes  of  integra¬ 
tion  of  this  ultimate  unit.  ’  ’ 2  But  why  assume  any 
such  primordial  unit  of  feeling  as  the  substance 
of  mind  ?  Shall  we  not  gain  a  truer  knowledge 
of  the  nature  of  mind  by  seeking  the  relations 
involved  in  our  concrete  experience  as  a  totality  ? 
We  throw  away  all  possibility  of  knowing  any¬ 
thing  about  either  our  minds  as  concrete  wholes 
or  the  external  world,  if  we  resolve  the  mind  into 
utterly  featureless,  unknowable  elements.  The 
total  mind  is  the  real  existence,  not  hypothetical 
primordial  shocks.  Mr.  Spencer’s  procedure  is 
“  the  reduction  of  all  the  more  complex  forms  to 
the  simplest  form,”  which  “  leaves  us  with  noth¬ 
ing  but  this  simplest  form  out  of  which  to  frame 
our  thought.”3  “  If  every  state  of  mind  is  some 
modification  of  this  substance  of  mind,  there  can 
be  no  state  of  mind  in  which  the  unmodified  sub¬ 
stance  of  mind  is  present.”4  So  that  we  can 
know  nothing  of  the  substance  of  mind,  hence 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  p.  150.  3  Ibid.,  p.  157. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  1 5 1.  4  Ibid.,  pp.  146-7. 


IIO  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


nothing  of  mind.  This  assumption,  of  simple 
elements,  of  a  mind-substance  existing  apart  from 
its  manifestations,  is  but  the  setting  up  of  a 
scholastic  entity.  It  is  assumed  that  the  sub¬ 
stance  of  mind  consists  of  units  of  feeling,  and 
because  these  are  not  known  as  such  it  follows 
of  course  that  mind  is  unknowable.  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer’s  mind-substance  is  clearly  an  elusive  and 
unknowable  “ghost”  of  his  own  raising.  This 
unknowable  mind-substance  leads  us  directly  to 
a  consideration  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  general  theory 
of  the  Unknowable  and  the  process  by  which  he 
arrives  at  it. 

The  chapter1  on  ultimate  religious  ideas  opens 
with  a  consideration  of  the  nature  of  conceptions 
and  their  adequacy  to  their  objects.2 

Our  conceptions  become  more  symbolic,  i.e.y 
less  like  the  reality,  as  they  rise  in  generality. 
This  symbolizing  process  is  necessary,  but  leads 
to  our  mistaking  our  symbolic  conceptions  for 
real  ones.  We  habitually  regard  our  symbolic 
conceptions  as  real  because  they  can  in  most 
cases  be  developed  into  complete  ones.  A  con¬ 
ception  is  “  complete  only  when  the  attributes 
of  the  objects  conceived  are  of  such  number  and 
kind  that  they  can  be  represented  in  conscious¬ 
ness  so  nearly  at  the  same  time  as  to  seem  all 
present  together.”3  As  the  objects  conceived 

1  First  Pj-inciples ,  part  i.,  chap,  ii.,  pp.  25-46. 

a  Ibid.,  §  g,  p.  25  ff.  3  Ibid.,  p.  29. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


1 1 1 

become  larger  in  extent  and  meaning  the  con¬ 
ceptions  of  them  grow  less  complete  and  more 
symbolic.  The  use  of  such  symbolic  conceptions 
is  legitimate  so  long  as  by  any  process  of  thought 
we  can  assure  ourselves  that  they  stand  for  ac¬ 
tualities.  Beyond  this,  he  says,  these  symbolic 
conceptions  are  vicious  and  illusory. 

With  this  criticism  of  conceptions  in  mind  Mr. 
Spencer  proceeds  to  examine  ultimate  religious 
ideas.  The  first  of  these  to  present  themselves 
are  the  ideas  growing  out  of  the  problems  of  the 
origin  of  the  universe.1  In  this  regard  there  are 
three  suppositions — self-existence,  self-creation, 
and  creation  by  an  external  agency.  We  would 
all  doubtless  agree  with  Mr.  Spencer  that  the 
idea  of  the  creation  of  the  universe  by  an  ex¬ 
ternal  agency  involves  a  palpable  absurdity,  pro¬ 
vided  the  universe  is  taken  as  meaning  the  entire 
circle  of  being,  and  not  a  finite  world,  with  be¬ 
ginning  and  end.  Self-creation  or  passage  from 
potential  existence  to  actual  existence  is  rightly 
regarded  by  him  as  vague  and  inconceivable. 
But  if  we  mean  by  self-creation  that  the  universe 
is  active  and  contains  within  itself  a  principle  of 
development,  this  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  an 
impossible  though  it  is  indeed  a  vague  concep¬ 
tion.  Mr.  Spencer  seems  to  mistake  entirely  the 
meaning  of  the  statement  that  the  universe  is 
self -existent.  Strictly  speaking,  the  phrase  is, 

1  First  Principles,  §  ii,  p.  30  ff. 


1 12  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


perhaps,  an  unfortunate  one.  To  say  that  the 
universe  is  self-existent  is  only  to  say  that  the 
universe  possesses  continuity  of  existence.  Self¬ 
existence  means,  indeed,  existence  without  a  be¬ 
ginning,  but  it  does  not  mean  that  we  must  try 
to  think  the  universe  as  existent  in  endless  past 
time.  We  may  say  with  truth  that  the  Universe 
of  Being  possesses  continuity  of  existence.  Ac¬ 
cepting  Mr.  Spencer’s  criticism  that  this  does 
not  explain  how  being  came  to  be,  we  may  reply 
that  the  question  how  being  was  made  is  absurd 
and  meaningless. 

Having  disposed  of  these  illusory  symbolic 
conceptions  which  refer  to  the  origin  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  he  turns  to  those  which  express  the  nature 
of  the  universe.  “  The  objects  and  actions  sur¬ 
rounding  us,  not  less  than  the  phenomena  of 
our  consciousness  compel  us,  to  ask  a  cause  : 
in  our  search  for  a  cause  we  discover  no  resting- 
place  until  we  arrive  at  the  hypothesis  of  a  First 
Cause :  and  we  have  no  alternative  but  to  regard 
this  First  Cause  as  Infinite  and  Absolute.”1 
He  says  it  might  be  shown  that  these  are  sym¬ 
bolic  conceptions  of  the  illegitimate  order.  He 
prefers  to  show  the  contradictions  involved  in 
viewing  the  three  conceptions — the  First  Cause, 
the  Absolute,  and  the  Infinite  as  attributes  of 
one  and  the  same  being.  He  avails  himself  of 
Mr.  Mansel’s  demonstration,  which  is  substan- 

1  First  Principles ,  p.  38. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD  113 

tially  as  follows : 1  Cause  exists  only  in  relation 
to  effect.  The  Absolute  is  out  of  all  relation. 
Therefore  it  can  cause  nothing.  It  does  not 
avoid  the  difficulty  to  say  the  Absolute  exists 
first  by  itself  and  afterwards  as  a  cause.  For  the 
Absolute  is  infinite.  How  can  the  Infinite  be¬ 
come  that  which  it  was  not  ?  The  Absolute  can 
neither  be  related  to  anything  else  nor  contain 
an  essential  relation  within  itself.  “  For  if  there 
is  in  the  Absolute  any  principle  of  unity  distinct 
from  the  mere  accumulation  of  parts  or  attributes, 
this  principle  alone  is  the  true  Absolute,  ” 2  and 
if  there  is  no  such  principle  there  is  no  Absolute, 
but  only  plurality.  Even  if  these  difficulties 
were  overcome  it  would  be  impossible  to  imag¬ 
ine  the  Absolute  as  cause  of  the  relative.  The 
Absolute  is  perfect.  If  causal  activity  is  a  higher 
state  than  quiescence,  then  in  becoming  causal 
the  Absolute  becomes  more  perfect,  and  this 
again  is  contradictory.  The  Absolute  and  In¬ 
finite  involves  contradictions  from  whatever  side 
it  is  viewed. 

Nevertheless,  says  Mr.  Spencer,  we  are  not  to 
conclude  that  there  is  no  “  fundamental  verity” 
contained  in  these  errors.  Following  his  method, 
he  abstracts  from  all  these  contradictory  views 
and  from  the  multiplicity  of  religious  creeds  their 

1  First  Principles ,  p.  39  ff.  Mr.  Mansel’s  treatment  is  sub¬ 
stantially  a  repetition  of  Kant’s  in  the  Antinomies  of  Reason. 

2  First  Principles ,  p.  40. 

8 


1 14  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


common  element.  This  common  element  we 
discover  to  be  the  utter  inscrutability  of  their 
subject-matter.  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  tell  us 
how  the  conception  of  Power  or  Energy  survives 
through  all  this  process  of  abstraction.  On  his 
principles  he  is  not  entitled  to  say  positively  that 
the  ultimate  is  even  an  **  Ultimate,”  much  less 
an  “  absolute  mystery.  ”  Having  completely  ob¬ 
literated  all  content  from  the  ultimate  religious 
ideas,  Mr.  Spencer  performs  the  same  office  by 
the  ultimate  scientific  ideas.1  He  finds  time  and 
space  inconceivable.  Into  his  criticism  I  have 
not  space  to  enter,  but  I  will  make  one  remark 
thereon.  His  dilemma — that  if  Space  and  Time 
are  entities  we  cannot  conceive  them  because 
they  are  without  attributes,  and  if  they  are  non¬ 
entities  we  cannot  conceive  them  since  they 
would  be  two  nothings — does  not  exhaust  the 
problem.  It  is  thinkable  that  Space  and  Time 
are  in  some  way  properties  of  the  Real,  and  that 
they  are  relatively  imperfect  aspects  under  which 
the  Real  appears  to  us.  It  is  possible  that,  in 
Plato’s  words,  they  share  in  both  being  and  non- 
being.  Mr.  Spencer  points  out  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  conceiving  matter  as  either  infinitely 
or  finitely  divisible,  and  shows  that  if  matter  is 
absolutely  solid  the  law  of  continuity  is  broken 
in  regard  to  collision.  Again,  he  says,  if  we  re¬ 
gard  matter  as  made  up  of  solid  units,  we  must 

1  First  Principles ,  chap,  iii.,  pp.  47-67. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


1 15 

still  inquire  as  to  the  constitution  of  these  units, 
and  so  we  cannot  bring  our  thought  to  a  termina¬ 
tion.  Motion  and  the  relations  of  motion  and 
rest  are  likewise  involved  in  contradictions.  We 
cannot  conceive  the  nature  of  force  or  understand 
the  connection  between  force  and  matter.  Turn¬ 
ing  inward,  we  ask,  Is  consciousness  finite  or  in¬ 
finite  ?  and  cannot  find  an  answer.  We  cannot 
know  the  self  truly,  for  “  a  true  cognition  of  the 
self  implies  a  state  in  which  the  knowing  and  the 
known  are  one,  in  which  subject  and  object  are 
identical.”1  When  we  have  resolved  external 
phenomena  into  manifestations  of  force  in  space 
and  time,  we  still  find  that  force,  space,  and  time 
are  incomprehensible.  When  we  have  resolved 
mental  actions  into  sensations  we  find  that  sen¬ 
sations  are  incomprehensible.  To  the  man  of 
science  objective  and  subjective  things  are  alike 
inscrutable. 

Having  demonstrated  the  incomprehensibility 
of  ultimate  facts,  whether  viewed  from  the  side 
of  religion  or  of  science,  Mr.  Spencer  proceeds 
to  clinch  his  argument  by  showing  on  rational 
grounds  that  all  knowledge  is  relative,  and  hence, 
of  course,  inadequate  to  its  object.2  All  expla¬ 
nation  and  all  understanding  of  cognized  facts 
depends  on  their  reduction  to  more  general  cogni¬ 
tions.  ”  As  the  most  general  cognition  cannot 
be  reduced  to  a  more  general  one,  it  cannot  be 

1  First  Principles ,  p.  65.  2  Ibid.,  chap.  iv. ,  pp.  68-97. 


II 6  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


understood.  Of  necessity,  therefore,  explana¬ 
tion  must  eventually  bring  us  down  to  the  inex¬ 
plicable.  The  deepest  truth  which  we  can  get  at 
must  be  unaccountable.”1  This  result  reached 
by  an  analysis  of  the  product  of  thought  our 
author  finds  confirmed  by  a  study  of  the  process 
of  thought.  He  quotes  Sir  William  Hamilton’s 
and  Mr.  Mansel’s  demonstrations  of  the  rela¬ 
tivity  of  knowledge,  which  are  substantially  as 
follows:2  To  think  is  to  condition,  to  distinguish 
objects  and  bring  them  into  relation  with  one 
another.  To  distinguish  one  object  from  another 
is  to  limit  one  by  the  other.  But  the  Absolute, 
the  Infinite  is  without  condition,  and  so  cannot 
be  thought.  The  Infinite  is  the  mere  negation 
of  the  finite.  It  can  have  nothing  either  in  com¬ 
mon  with  or  different  from  the  finite.  Again, 
our  whole  notion  of  existence  is  relative,  and  we 
can  form  no  conception  of  the  Absolute,  since  it 
is  merely  the  absence  of  relations.  Mr.  Spencer 
tries  to  strengthen  this  demonstration  by  addi¬ 
tions  of  his  own.  If  we  are  to  know  the  Abso¬ 
lute  and  Infinite,  it  must  be  classed.  Classifica¬ 
tion  involves  recognition.  But  the  Absolute  can 
be  like  nothing  else  that  we  know,  and  therefore 
cannot  be  recognized  or  known.  Again,  the  rela¬ 
tivity  of  our  thinking  to  relations  in  our  environ¬ 
ment  shows  that  no  thought  can  express  more 
than  relations. 

1  First  Principles ,  p.  73.  3  Ibid. ,  p.  74  ff. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


II 7 


It  has  apparently  been  proved  in  so  many  ways 
that  the  Absolute  is  absolutely  inscrutable,  one 
might  infer  that  it  is  Mr.  Spencer’s  purpose  to 
reduce  it  to  a  mere  negation  of  consciousness. 
But  no !  He  maintains  that  we  have  a  positive 
though  indefinite  consciousness  of  the  Absolute. 
This  consciousness  is  formed  by  the  attrition  and 
coalescence  of  all  our  ideas  and  conceptions.1  So 
we  arrive  at  the  consciousness  of  an  actuality 
lying  beyond  appearances.  When  all  our  concrete 
experiences  have  been  emptied  into  the  Ultimate 
Inscrutability,  we  are  told  that  this  Inscrutability 
still  is.  This  is  the  mere  statement  that  Being  is 
— a  bare  tautology.  We  are  told  that  religion 
is  the  consciousness  of  the  “  inscrutable  power 
manifested  to  us  through  all  phenomena.”  We 
must  “  refrain  from  assigning  to  it  any  attributes, 
on  the  ground  that  such  attributes,  derived  as 
they  must  be  from  our  own  natures,  are  not  eleva¬ 
tions,  but  degradations.  ”  2  So  we  are  offered  as 
the  object  of  our  ultimate  belief  and  worship  a 
”  night  in  which  all  cows  are  black.” 

It  is  evident  that  Mr.  Spencer  regards  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  knowledge  as  an  increase  in  extension 
accompanied  by  a  corresponding  decrease  in  in¬ 
tension.  As  conceptions  embrace  wider  fields  of 
existence  within  their  grasp,  they  become  less 
adequate  to  express  the  concrete  fulness  of  ex¬ 
istence.  In  his  own  language  they  become  more 

1  First  Principles ,  p.  87  ff.  a  Ibid.,  p.  109. 


1 1 8  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


symbolic  and  less  real.  For  the  completest  con¬ 
ception  is  one  in  which  all  the  attributes  of  the 
object  are  held  together  at  the  same  moment  in 
consciousness.  The  truth  in  this  view  is  that 
the  concept  should  be  the  logical  unity  of  all  the 
attributes  of  the  object.  As  such,  the  concept  ex¬ 
presses  the  unity  of  a  series  of  judgments.  The 
ideal  concept  is  a  principle  of  unity  of  which  the 
attributes  are  moments.  Mr.  Spencer  says  that 
conceptions  become  very  unlike  the  things  con¬ 
ceived  when  we  come  to  propositions  concerning 
wide-embracing  classes,  e.g.,  the  vertebrata  or 
the  whole  animal  kingdom.  Now,  the  truth  is 
that  the  perceptual  image,  which  is  the  psychi¬ 
cal  setting  of  the  concept,  may  become  more 
unlike  the  individual  objects  of  the  group.  But 
the  true  concept  of  a  class  of  objects  is  not  formed 
merely  by  the  attrition  and  coalescence  of  the 
perceptual  images  of  particular  objects.  The 
concept  is  not  an  average  percept.  A  concept 
expresses,  through  the  unification  of  particular 
judgments ,  the  unity  of  the  salient  features  in  the 
form  and  behavior  of  the  class  of  objects  which 
it  stands  for.  The  concept  is  adequate  only 
when  the  attributes  of  its  group  are  grasped,  not 
simply  together,  but  in  their  relations  to  one  an¬ 
other,  so  that  these  attributes  are  conceived,  not 
as  existing  side  by  side  in  an  external  juxtaposi¬ 
tion,  but  as  reciprocally  influencing  one  another 
in  the  unity  of  the  concrete  objects.  Every  true 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


ll9 

concept  will  then  be  complete  in  so  far  as  the 
group  of  objects  it  stands  for  is  complete.  But 
since  groups  of  objects  exist  only  in  relation  to 
other  groups  no  single  group-concept  can  have 
meaning  in  isolation  from  others. 

Mr.  Spencer’s  method  is  wholly  analytic.  He 
holds  that  the  goal  of  thinking  is  the  discovery 
of  the  most  highly  abstract  laws.  These  he  holds 
to  be  true  and  yet  not  true,  because  they  stand 
at  the  farthest  remove  from  the  concrete  world 
of  perception.  He  holds  that  science  constructs 
its  laws  from  experience  of  the  real  world,  and 
yet  the  construction  is  of  such  a  character  that 
the  real  world  cannot  be  reconstructed  in  terms 
of  science.  Now,  on  the  contrary,  knowledge 
can  claim  to  fulfil  its  purpose  and  to  approach 
completeness  only  when  its  highest  principles  or 
laws  are  grasped  in  their  mutual  relations,  not  as 
abstracted  from  the  concrete  details  of  experi¬ 
ence,  but  as  the  principles  of  the  concrete  par¬ 
ticulars  which  make  up  the  real  world  of  percep¬ 
tion.  Such  a  system  of  principles  will  give  to 
each  particular  its  true  meaning  by  exhibiting  its 
place  in  the  individual  system  which  constitutes 
reality.  The  discovery  of  the  laws  of  phenomena 
can  be  said  to  decrease  our  knowledge  of  phe¬ 
nomena  only  when  these  laws  are  hypostatized 
and  placed  above  the  world  of  experience  in  soli¬ 
tary  state.  A  really  synthetic  philosophy  would 
endeavor  to  see  each  principle  of  science  as  an 


120  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


element  in  that  organic  unity  of  knowledge 
through  which  alone  knowledge  represents  real¬ 
ity.  Each  particular  law  or  truth  represents  a 
phase  or  moment  of  reality.  Neither  abstract 
law  nor  bare  fact  is  true  in  isolation.  Both  are 
elements  in  a  relational  unity  of  experience.  As 
such  an  element  the  law  represents  the  fact  by 
stating  the  conditions  of  its  existence.  Conse¬ 
quently  “  the  most  general  cognition  at  which 
we  can  arrive'’  is  not  “inexplicable.”  It  Is  a 
cognition,  and  has  a  meaning  only  because  it  is 
the  organic  unity  of  all  less  general  cognitions, 
and  so  represents  the  organic  unity  of  the  real 
world.  It  is  no  more  inexplicable  than  the  most 
modest  fact  in  the  world.  Indeed,  it  is  nothing 
but  that  relational  unity  which  is  implied  in  the 
concrete  world,  and  the  explication  of  which  con¬ 
fers  meaning  on  the  particular  facts  of  percep¬ 
tion.  Truth  is  an  organism,  not  a  mechanical 
heap  of  isolated  laws.  Analysis  and  synthesis 
imply  one  another.  It  is  as  necessary  for  the 
life  of  knowledge  that  they  should  go  on  to¬ 
gether  as  it  is  for  the  animal  organism  that  katabo- 
lism  and  anabolism  should  work  together.  Any 
single  truth  is  by  itself  abstract,  a  mere  particu¬ 
lar.  Truths  express  the  relations  of  facts.  But 
no  truth  is  true  by  itself.  When  a  truth  is 
grasped  in  its  relations  then  the  facts  which  it 
represents  are  transformed.  Seen  in  their  rela¬ 
tions  they  cease  to  be  mere  particulars,  and  be- 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


1 2 1 


come  concrete  individual  elements  in  the  system 
of  experience. 

It  is  this  false  conception  of  knowledge  as  a 
mere  process  of  analysis  or  abstraction  that  has 
led  Mr.  Spencer  to  accept  the  empty  conceptions 
of  the  First  Cause,  Infinite  and  Absolute  held  by 
Hamilton  and  Mansel.  The  First  Cause  is  cer¬ 
tainly  an  impossible  absolute,  if  cause  be  used  in 
its  ordinary  sense  as  something  antecedent  to 
and  existing  entirely  outside  of  the  effect.  The 
true  Absolute  is  the  totality  of  causes  and  effects. 
If  the  Absolute  be  thought  as  wholly  character¬ 
less,  a  mere  absence  of  relations,  it  is  very  easy 
to  show  that  it  is  inconceivable.  Is  not  the  Ab¬ 
solute  to  be  thought  rather  as  the  total  reality  of 
things,  embracing  all  relations  within  itself  as  a 
self-related  individuality  ?  Again,  the  true  In¬ 
finite  is  not  the  mere  negation  of  the  finite,  but 
the  presupposition  and  completion  of  the  finite 
as  given  in  experience. 

In  our  search  for  knowledge  of  the  real  which 
is  presented  to  us  in  experience  we  are  led  ever 
farther  into  a  world  of  complex  relations,  of  unity 
in  difference.  This  is  a  strong  presumption  that 
relations  belong  in  some  way  to  Reality.  By 
relations  I  do  not  mean  mere  bloodless  cate¬ 
gories,  but  relations  of  energy,  of  will  and  feel¬ 
ing,  as  well  as  of  discursive  thought.  If  knowl¬ 
edge  is  valid  in  any  sense,  then  the  growth  of 
human  experience  in  complexity  or  interrelated- 


122  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


ness  is  a  disclosure  of  the  nature  of  reality.  The 
goal  of  human  knowledge  and  action  is  the  con¬ 
crete  Individual,  and  this  goal  will  find  its  fufil- 
ment  in  the  thought  of  the  Absolute  Individual. 

Mr.  Spencer’s  conclusion  is  that  the  Absolute 
is  Force.  “  The  power  which  manifests  itself  in 
consciousness  is  but  a  differently  conditioned 
form  of  the  power  which  manifests  itself  beyond 
consciousness.”1  “The  last  stage  reached  is 
recognition  of  the  truth  that  force  as  it  exists 
beyond  consciousness,  cannot  be  like  what  we 
know  as  force  within  consciousness;  and  that  yet 
as  either  is  incapable  of  generating  the  other, 
they  must  be  different  modes  of  the  same.  Con¬ 
sequently  the  final  outcome  of  that  speculation 
commenced  by  primitive  man  is  that  the  Power 
manifested  throughout  the  universe  distinguished 
as  material,  is  the  same  Power  which  in  ourselves 
wells  up  under  the  form  of  consciousness.”  2 

The  “  Unknowable,”  then,  possesses  the  single 
positive  attribute  of  being  “  Power”  or  “  En¬ 
ergy.  ”  But  “  Energy”  is  a  particular  category 
of  self-conscious  thought.  It  cannot  be  used  in 
this  offhand  fashion  to  designate  the  total  reality. 
Like  Space,  Time,  Matter,  and  Motion,  “  En¬ 
ergy  ”  is  simply  a  relatively  abstract  mode  under 
which  thought  conceives  experience.  “  Energy” 
is  a  name  for  one  generalized  aspect  of  expe¬ 
rience.  “  Energy,”  then,  as  a  term  to  designate 
1  Principles  of  Sociology,  III.,  p.  170.  2  Ibid.,  p.  171. 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


123 


reality,  is  a  mode  of  conceiving  a  single  aspect  of 
reality.  Like  the  other  categories  above  named, 
it  is  a  relatively  abstract,  incomplete  expression 
for  reality  as  experienced.  To  offer  “an  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Energy  ’’  as  the  ultimate  explanation 
of  existence  is  to  explain  the  whole  by  the  part, 
to  make  the  tail  wag  the  dog.  One  might  as 
well  call  the  Absolute  Infinite  Space  or  Time. 

The  mere  category  of  energy  offers  no  expla¬ 
nation  of  the  significance  of  human  personalities. 
It  does  not  account  for  the  self-consciousness 
from  which  knowledge  of  energy  itself  springs. 
The  mechanical  explanation  of  things  is  a  mode 
of  thinking  part  of  our  experience,  and  arises  from 
the  practical  need  which  the  human  mind  has  of 
conceiving  the  external  world  for  purposes  of  cal¬ 
culation  in  the  simplest  possible  terms.  But  we 
have  no  right  to  extend  this  conception  to  the 
explanation  of  the  whole  of  experience.  For  this 
explanation  does  not  account  for  the  origin,  nor 
can  it  explain  away  the  value,  of  the  many-sided 
self-conscious  life  of  human  experience,  with  its 
poignant  feelings  and  its  unceasing  struggle  to 
find  expression  and  satisfaction  in  the  forms  of 
truth,  beauty,  and  goodness.  If  the  category  of 
energy  or  power  is  but  a  means  of  comprehend¬ 
ing  the  movement  of  the  world,  and  springs  from 
the  self’s  practical  needs,  it  carries  in  itself  no 
justification  for  the  subordination  to  it  of  those 
categories  which  express  higher  human  values. 


124  MODERN  conceptions  of  god 


If  we  must  satisfy  our  metaphysical  craving  by 
setting  up  a  single  principle  to  explain  experi¬ 
ence,  let  such  a  principle  be  found  by  the  reinter¬ 
pretation  of  consciousness  in  the  wholeness  of  its 
life  as  once  affective  and  expressive,  receptive  and 
active.  For  self-consciousness  holds  within  its 
own  concrete  unity  all  the  various  aspects  and 
kinds  of  experience,  and  these  lose  their  meaning 
and  value  when  they  are  permanently  isolated 
from  the  unity  of  the  experiencing  self. 

The  Absolute  may  not,  then,  indeed  be  fully 
known,  but  it  will  be  intelligible  and  self-con¬ 
sistent,  since  it  will  be  conceived  as  in  some  way 
continuous  with  and  the  completion  of  human 
experience.  It  will  appear  as  the  fruition  of 
human  ideals.  The  Absolute  will  be  thought  as 
the  sustaining  and  harmonizing  central  experi¬ 
ence  from  which  no  phase  of  conscious  life  is  ex¬ 
cluded,  but  in  which  each  phase  of  experience 
has  its  place  determined  by  its  value  for  the 
whole  spiritual  life,  i.e.,  by  its  degree  of  spir¬ 
ituality.  Indeed,  the  nature  of  the  Absolute  can 
only  be  adequately  defined  after  a  careful  esti¬ 
mation  and  appreciation  of  the  various  activities 
of  consciousness.  To  carry  out  this  work  with 
completeness  would  involve  a  comparative  phi¬ 
losophy  of  knowledge,  aesthetics,  ethics,  and  relig¬ 
ion  on  a  historical  basis.  It  may  turn  out  that 
the  idea  of  the  Absolute  so  defined  is  analogous 
in  content  to  the  God  of  the  highest  religion.  If 


MR.  SPENCER’S  UNKNOWN  GOD 


125 


this  should  be  so,  then  the  idea  of  God  con¬ 
tained  in  any  given  form  of  historical  religion 
will  be  expressive  of  its  conception  of  the  ideals 
of  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  fused  with  and 
modified  by  racial  characteristics  and  historically 
inherited  systems  of  culture.  This  idea  of  relig¬ 
ion  gives  us  the  plan  for  a  philosophy  of  religion. 
For  the  ends  of  metaphysics  and  of  religion  are  the 
same,  but  in  a  sense  very  different  from  that  held 
by  Mr.  Spencer.  Metaphysics,  critical  and  inter¬ 
pretative  in  its  method,  will  wait  upon,  clear  up, 
and  unify  concrete  knowledge,  conduct,  art,  and 
religion  rather  than  endeavor  to  anticipate  or 
supplant  the  intuitions  of  ethical  and  religious 
experience. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  ABSOLUTE,  THE  FINITE  INDIVIDUAL,  AND 

THE  TIME-PROCESS. 

I.  The  Implications  of  Finite  Experience. 

Philosophical  construction  should  begin  with 
the  fact  of  conscious  experience  in  general,  and 
proceed  by  a  consideration  of  its  implications. 
“  Experience  ”  is  the  total  product  of  the  activity 
of  consciousness.  “  Consciousness  ”  is  a  name 
for  the  self-revealing  light  of  experience.  I  be¬ 
gin  with  the  internal  and  comprehensive  unity 
of  conscious  experience.  Behind  this  ultimate 
datum  I  do  not  know  how  to  penetrate,  except 
by  means  of  reflection  on  experience  itself. 

All  the  riddles  of  philosophy  are  involved  in 
the  questions  that  are  aroused  by  a  consideration 
of  the  bare  existence  of  consciousness,  viz.,  con¬ 
sciousness  of  what  and  by  whom  ?  In  the  mere 
fact  of  conscious  experience  there  is  presented 
the  unity  of  the  experiencing  subject  and  the  ex¬ 
perienced  object.  In  the  last  analysis  we  have 
no  data  upon  which  to  proceed  other  than  psy¬ 
chical  appearances.  All  our  thinking,  no  matter 


IMPLICATIONS  OF  EXPERIENCE 


127 


how  trans-subjective  or  transcendental  the  sub¬ 
ject-matter  may  ultimately  seem  to  be,  is  done 
in  terms  of  conscious  process  and  upon  material 
supplied  by  conscious  processes.  A  fact  to 
whose  nature  it  did  not  appertain  to  be  related 
to  our  consciousness,  either  directly  or  indirectly, 
would  not  be  a  fact  in  any  intelligible  and  posi¬ 
tive  sense:  it  would  be  an  unknowable.  Hence 
the  fundamental  question  for  philosophy  is,  What 
is  implied  in  the  very  being  of  human  experience 
or  consciousness  ?  It  may  be  said  that  all  experi¬ 
ence  must  belong  to  some  one  in  particular — that 
experience  in  general  is  a  hypostatized  abstrac¬ 
tion,  and  therefore  we  cannot  begin  with  it.  Now, 
it  is  quite  true  that  there  are  as  many  experiences 
as  there  are  individual  centres  of  consciousness 
in  the  world.  (Indeed,  when  we  consider  the 
changes  that  a  single  conscious  individual  may 
undergo,  we  must  admit  that  there  are  many 
more  apparent  experiences  than  individuals.) 
But  it  is  equally  true  that  an  experience  is  never 
adequately  accounted  for  by  saying  that  it  is 
solely  mine  or  yours.  Every  step  that  I  take  in 
that  analysis  of  my  experience  which  constitutes 
the  beginnings  of  knozvledge ,  or  in  that  primary 
synthesis  which  constitutes  the  fundamental,  life- 
regarding  actions,  is  conditioned  by  the  assumed 
agreement  of  my  experience  with  other  experi¬ 
ences,  past  as  well  as  contemporary.  My  experi¬ 
ence  first  becomes  actual  through  its  unity  with 


128  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


a  more  comprehensive  and  systematized  whole 
of  possible  experience  for  me.  And  this  whole  of 
possible  experiences  for  me  is  at  the  same  time 
regarded  as  somehow  actual  for  other  experi¬ 
encing  subjects.  Every  move  I  make  in  life  is 
made  upon  this  assumption.  Whether  I  think 
or  act,  I  proceed  upon  the  belief  in  the  reality  of 
an  experience  which  will  become  actual  for  me 
when  I  place  myself  in  certain  relations,  and 
which  is  now  actual  for  others  living  in  these 
relations. 

Experience,  in  one  of  its  aspects,  means  the 
unity,  continuity,  and  extent  of  the  conscious¬ 
ness  which  exists  as  belonging  to  a  finite  self. 
But  this  self  recognizes  in  its  own  finitude  the 
fact  that  its  experience  carries  it  beyond  the 
limits  of  its  own  existence.  The  finite  self  tacitly 
acknowledges  itself  to  be  a  specific  and  highly 
differentiated  element  in  the  totality  of  a  social 
and  historical  unity  of  experience,  which  is  made 
up  of  other  elements  like  unto  itself,  and  there¬ 
fore  capable  of  living  only  in  reciprocal  relation¬ 
ships.  It  lives  and  develops  by  virtue  of  its  rec¬ 
ognition,  often  with  fear  and  trembling,  that  its 
own  experience  involves  vastly  more  than  that 
lean  and  hungry  centre  of  consciousness  which 
at  the  moment  it  calls  “  myself."  The  growing 
self  finds  within  the  totality  of  its  own  experi¬ 
ence,  but  beyond  the  sweep  of  its  immediately 
active  life,  certain  relatively  permanent  factors 


IMPLICATIONS  OF  EXPERIENCE 


129 


which  react  upon  itself  and  present  limits  to  its 
own  expansion.  These  resisting  factors  offer  re¬ 
peated  experiences  which  are  found  to  be  similar 
to  certain  constant  elements  in  the  self’s  most 
intimate  life.  (These  similar  elements  are  such 
as  make  up  our  experiences  of  the  body  on  both 
its  sensory  and  active  or  impressional  and  ex- 
pressional  sides.)  On  the  basis  of  these  similar 
and  constant  elements  of  experience  the  self  at 
first  conceives  all  external  realities  as  like  unto 
itself  (animism).  But  in  the  growth  and  differ¬ 
entiation  of  its  experience  the  finite  centre  of 
consciousness  learns  to  distinguish  carefully  dif¬ 
ferent  grades  and  kinds  of  objects  as  indicated  by 
the  character  of  their  resistances  and  reactions. 
Some  of  these  permanent  factors  in  experience  it 
finds  to  be  very  like  itself,  others  to  be  inferior 
in  mobility  and  power  of  adjustment.  Thus 
there  arises  the  distinction  between  personal 
“  selves  ”  and  impersonal  “  things.”  The  differ¬ 
entiation  of  experience  into  these  two  classes  is 
complementary  to  and  parallel  with  the  growth 
in  the  consciousness  of  self.1  ”  Iron  sharpeneth 
iron :  so  a  man  sharpeneth  the  countenance  of 
his  friend.  ”  2 

My  experience  is  part  of  a  social  and  historical 

1  On  the  genesis  of  the  ideas  of  the  external  world  and  the  self, 
see  G.  F.  .Stout,  Manual  of  Psychology ,  IV.,  chaps,  vi.  and 
vii. 

2  Proverbs,  chap,  xxvii.,  verse  17. 


9 


130 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


organization  of  experience  in  which  other  selves 
have  membership.  Whilst  certain  aspects  of  my 
own  experience  are  indeed  considered  as  unique, 
nevertheless  I  think  and  act  on  the  belief  in  a 
continuity  of  my  experience  with  the  experiences 
of  other  selves.  We  always  regard  ourselves  as 
members  of  a  common  world.  It  is  in  the  com¬ 
munity,  furnished  by  our  world  of  selves  and 
things,  that  each  one  of  us  realizes  in  his  own 
measure  and  manner  that  unity  of  experience  on 
which  the  individual  depends  for  the  very  food¬ 
stuff  of  his  life. 

Selves  or  persons  are  the  finite  centres  of  con¬ 
sciousness  in  which  the  world  of  experience  is 
focalized.  Somehow  these  seemingly  isolated 
centres  make  connections  with  one  another  in 
a  social  unity  and  a  historical  continuity  of  ex¬ 
perience.  They  think,  feel,  and  act  from  the 
permanent  background  of  an  actual  or  possible 
common  content  and  meaning  for  their  individ¬ 
ually  diverse  and  emotionally  unique  experiences. 
They  are  aware  of  being  foci  of  consciousness 
within  a  common  medium.  Naive  popular  think¬ 
ing  holds  that  the  medium  within  which  this 
community  of  experience  is  possessed,  and  the 
permanent  ground  of  its  unity  and  continuity  is 
the  so-called  external  world .  But  how  can  a  world 
external  to  consciousness,  if  it  be  conceived  as 
entirely  different  in  kind  from  consciousness,  be 
the  basis  of  the  unity  of  experience  in  two  finite 


IMPLICATIONS  OF  EXPERIENCE 


131 

centres  of  consciousness  ?  To  ground  the  unity 
of  experience  on  the  existence  of  a  permanent 
something  which  is  not  experience  at  all  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  latter  exists  for  the  finite 
consciousness  is  to  explain  this  felt  and  known 
world  in  terms  of  an  unknown  and  inconceivable 
world.  The  external  world  of  popular  thinking  is 
a  mere  X,  and  calls  for  definition.  To  carry  this 
conception  bodily  over  into  the  philosophical 
consideration  of  the  relation  between  the  single 
finite  experience  and  the  total  reality  of  things 
is  to  be  guided  by  a  blind,  uncritical  prejudice. 
The  logical  outcome  of  such  a  procedure  is  the 
doctrine  that  the  real  world  is  absolutely  un¬ 
knowable. 

That  a  unity  and  continuity  of  experience  exists, 
as  somehow  holding  together,  and  indeed  as 
making  possible  the  diverse  experiences  of  finite 
selves,  is  directly  implied  in  the  sociality  of  the 
finite,  human  experience.  The  very  existence  of 
organized  society  depends  upon  the  implicit  rec¬ 
ognition  of  this  unity  and  continuity.  Actual, 
concrete  knowledge  and  action  are  social  in  their 
genesis.  Moreover,  the  validity  of  knowledge  is 
finally  social.  A  new  bit  of  knowledge  is  held  by 
its  discoverer  to  be  valid  because  he  confidently 
foresees  that  it  will  gain  social  recognition,  at 
first  from  the  few  leaders  who  are  competent  to 
judge  in  the  department  to  which  this  new  knowl¬ 
edge  belongs,  and  afterwards  from  the  multitude 


13  2  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


which  recognizes  in  the  few  experts  its  own 
leaders  and  guides.  And  thus,  in  the  end,  the 
new  bit  of  knowledge  will  become  a  recognized 
element  in  the  historical  continuity  of  experience. 
The  proposition  that  all  action  depends  for  its 
efficacy  on  its  social  bearings,  direct  or  indirect, 
immediate  or  remote,  hardly  needs  explanation 
or  defence  in  these  days.  My  conclusion  is  that 
an  epistemology  or  theory  of  knowledge,  which 
starts  from  the  basic  fact  of  experience,  but  fails 
to  take  account  of  its  essentially  social  and  his¬ 
torical  character,  must  end  in  solipsism,  and  in¬ 
deed  in  the  repudiation  of  its  own  starting-point. 
The  inference  in  regard  to  the  present  question  is 
that  the  real  external  world  must  be  a  unity  of 
experience ,  and  yet,  since  it  is  more  than  and  in¬ 
dependent  of  the  finite  centre  of  experience,  it 
cannot  be  quite  the  same  as  our  own  immediate 
consciousness  of  it. 

How,  then,  can  this  unity  of  experience, 
which  is  the  very  presupposition  of  the  finite 
self-consciousness,  be  conceived  ?  Perhaps,  here, 
some  one  interposes  the  observation  that  the 
problem  is  an  artificial  one.  Each  self  repeats 
in  its  own  way  the  experiences  of  others.  Very 
true!  Then  the  so-called  unity  of  experience  is 
but  the  abstractly  conceived  similarity  of  diverse 
experiences.  No!  Finite  centres  do  not  exist 
at  all,  except  in  actual  interconnection.  They 
do  not  follow  one  another  as  a  series  of  isolated 


IMPLICATIONS  OF  EXPERIENCE 


133 


points,  which  is  a  series  only  for  the  philosophiz¬ 
ing  observer.  Finite  centres  of  experience  are 
contemporaneous  and  social,  as  well  as  continu¬ 
ous  and  historical,  in  all  the  theoretical  and  prac¬ 
tical  aspects  of  their  lives.  Besides,  each  finite 
self  is  a  private  centre  of  feeling,  cognition,  and 
conation,  a  unique  consciousness.  The  problem  is, 
How  can  such  private  and  unique  centres  of  con¬ 
sciousness  share  their  experiences  with  their  con¬ 
temporaries  and  hand  them  down  to  their  suc¬ 
cessors  ?  What,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  their 
medium  of  exchange  ?  To  offer  an  absolutely 
independent,  material  world  as  an  ultimate  ex¬ 
planation  of  this  actual  unity  and  continuity  of 
human  experience  is  to  explain  the  known  in 
terms  of  the  wholly  unknown. 

Some  hints  as  to  the  probable  nature  of  that 
absolute  unity  of  experiences  which  makes  pos¬ 
sible  the  individual,  finite  experience  may  be 
gleaned  from  human  relationships.  There  are 
presented  relatively  complete  unities  ( i.e .,  com¬ 
plete  from  the  finite  standpoint)  of  finite  individ¬ 
uals  in  love,  the  family  relationship,  friendships, 
and  religious  brotherhoods.  But,  in  all  these 
cases,  the  principle  of  unity  exists  only  for  the 
consciousness  of  the  united  individuals.  More¬ 
over,  it  does  not  exist  in  the  same  degree  for 
each  member  of  the  union.  And  when  one 
member  perishes  or  is  faithless  the  unity  of  life 
and  the  community  of  experience  are  destroyed. 


134 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


Suppose  a  relationship  of  this  sort  to  involve  two 
members,  A  and  B.  Then  U,  the  unity,  is  really 
twofold,  UA  and  UB,  i.e.,  the  unity  as  it  is  for 
A  and  for  B.  Let  A  become  estranged  from  B, 
then  for  B  there  is  only  a  memory  of  experience, 
UB,  an  aching  fragment  torn  from  the  unity 
which  is  lost. 

The  experience  of  the  individual  is,  in  one 
aspect,  unique  and  private.  Nevertheless  it  can 
realize  itself  only  by  reaching  out  into  the  experi¬ 
ence  of  others  and  making  them  its  own.  Now, 
this  twofold  process  of  parallel  and  continuous 
outgo  from  and  income  to  the  self,  by  which  the 
latter  is  being  forever  enriched,  cannot  be  con¬ 
ceived  as  having  a  permanent  and  intelligible  char¬ 
acter,  unless  it  is  supported  by  an  absolute  unity 
and  continuity  of  experience.  Finite  relation¬ 
ships  suggest  but  do  not  realize  this  absolute 
unity  of  experience.  For  the  experiences  of 
these  relationships  repeat  themselves  as  many 
times  as  there  are  members  in  the  relationship,  and 
they  depend,  for  their  countenance,  on  a  transient 
and  perishable  membership.  As  relations  between 
finite  individuals  they  are,  if  considered  apart 
from  the  Absolute  Unity  implied  in  them,  finite 
in  scope  and  fatally  infected  with  the  germs  of 
mortality.  The  absolute  unity  of  experience, 
on  the  other  hand,  must,  if  there  be  truth  at  the 
basis  of  human  knowledge  and  a  reality  at  the 
root  of  human  endeavor,  be  one  and  unchanging. 


IMPLICATIONS  OF  EXPERIENCE 


135 


The  alternative  is  the  possible  utter  isolation  of 
the  finite  individual  in  a  universe  of  figments, 
and  the  illusoriness,  or  at  best  the  absolute  un¬ 
certainty,  of  his  social  and  growing  experience. 
For  if  the  individual  has  not  membership  in  a 
unity  more  real  than  himself,  then  his  own  en¬ 
deavors  after  greater  reality  of  life  are  not  more 
real  in  their  outcome  than  the  inchoate  begin¬ 
nings  of  self-consciousness  from  which  they 
spring.  But  since  this  conscious  life  cannot  ex¬ 
ist  without  activity,  without  the  search  for  some 
sort  of  good,  and  since,  if  there  be  no  absolute 
unity  of  experience,  there  is  no  ground  for  any 
permanent  achievement,  the  life  of  conscious, 
personal  activity  must  be  illusory. 

If  finite  centres  of  experience  were  from  the 
outset  absolutely  independent  of  one  another, 
they  could  never  form  any  sort  of  community. 
They  would  be  motionless  things ,  not  selves,  and 
things  only  by  virtue  of  their  presence  in  some 
consciousness.  The  fact  that  they  have  their 
being  in  living  relationships  in  a  social  and  his¬ 
torical  community  of  existence  is  fatal  to  their 
absolute  independence,  but  it  indicates  the  nature 
of  the  unity  on  which  they  depend.  The  finite 
individual  knows  truth,  feels  beauty,  and  realizes 
goodness  as  a  member  of  a  larger  whole.  Now, 
why  not  say  that  this  Whole  or  Unity  is  simply 
the  totality  of  human  society  ?  Why  not  say 
that  the  Absolute  is  Humanity  ?  Let  us  agree 


136  modern  conceptions  of  god 


for  the  moment  to  this  proposal.  Then,  hi  whose 
experience  could  this  total  and  perfect  Humanity 
be  realized  ?  Certainly  not  in  that  of  the  finite 
individual.  For  this  experience  realizes  itself  only 
by  passing  beyond  itself  to  other  experiences. 
The  experience  of  the  finite  self  is  fragmentary, 
distracted,  and  seemingly  transient.  We  cannot 
get  the  Absolute ,  the  perfect  fruition  of  experi¬ 
ence,  by  adding  together  any  number  of  imper¬ 
fect,  finite  experiences.  A  given  finite  experi¬ 
ence  can  get  permanent  value  and  perfection  in 
its  kind  only  if  the  absolute  experience  is  now 
and  forever  implied  and  indeed  immanent  in  it. 
The  life  of  the  finite  self  in  its  social  relationships 
implies,  on  both  theoretical  and  practical  grounds, 
a  perfect ,  permanent  experience  or  consciousness. 
The  naive  intelligence  supplies  the  most  press¬ 
ing  practical  needs  of  a  permanent  being  by  the 
belief  in  an  independent,  material  world.  The 
primitive  man  ensouled  this  world.  Modern  posi¬ 
tive  science  has  deprived  it  of  life,  and  critical 
reflection  shows  that  its  apparent  independence 
and  permanence  are  relative  to  and  derived  from 
man’s  socialized  and  historical  thought.  The 
so-called  “independent”  world  is  a  world  of 
thought’s  own  making.  (Not,  of  course,  that 
this  world  is  the  creation  of  the  thought  of  the 
bare  individual.  The  very  idea  of  the  world 
involves  its  being  the  common  product  and 
property  of  many.  And  it  is  just  this  social 


IMPLICATIONS  OF  EXPERIENCE 


137 


ideation  for  which  we  are  seeking  a  founda¬ 
tion.) 

An  Absolute  which  can  be  the  source  and 
ground  of  the  community  of  finite  selves  must 
be  for  thought  and  in  thought.  And,  of  course, 
it  cannot  exist  merely  in  the  passing  thought  of 
a  finite  experience.  Therefore  it  must  be  for  and 
in  its  own  thought,  i.e. ,  it  must  be  self-conscious. 
It  must  be  a  perfect  unity,  otherwise  it  would  not 
account  for  the  partial  and  developing  unities  of 
experience  which  come  to  existence  in  every 
finite  centre  of  consciousness.  It  must  be  per¬ 
manent,  since  the  changing  finite  self  implies,  in 
every  step  of  its  thinking  and  its  striving,  an 
unchanging  reality  in  which  it  realizes  itself,  and 
which  it  realizes  in  itself.  And  if  the  Absolute 
be  permanent,  it  must  be  at  every  moment  com¬ 
plete  and  perfect.  The  Absolute,  then,  is  the 
perfect  Individual  Experience  or  Self  whose  ex¬ 
istence  is  implied  in  the  lives  of  imperfect  selves. 

It  appears,  now,  that  for  the  naive  notion  of  a 
permanent  and  solid  material  world  as  the  ground 
of  the  existence  and  communal  life  of  finite  selves, 
philosophical  reflection  must  substitute  the  idea 
of  a  permanent  and  perfect  unity  of  experience, 
a  single,  all-embracing  consciousness.  We  have 
reached  the  notion  of  the  Absolute  as  the  ground 
of  existence  of  finite  individual  experiences. 

Can  anything  further  and  more  definite  be  said 
about  the  nature  of  this  absolute  consciousness  ? 


138  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


What  I  have  already  said  has  been  found  to  be 
implied  in  the  nature  of  finite  consciousness.  If 
we  are  to  arrive  at  any  further  determinations  of 
the  Absolute,  we  must  find  our  clue  in  the  nature 
of  finite  selves.  But  we  have  been  led  to  assume 
that  these,  in  their  relations,  involve  a  permanent 
or  timeless  unity  of  experience,  i.e.y  an  Absolute 
Self  that  does  not  change.  Now,  the  finite  self 
is  notoriously  subject  to  change.  It  apparently 
comes  into  being  and  passes  out  of  being  in  time. 
How  can  such  a  plaything  of  time  furnish  us  with 
any  adequate  hints  as  to  the  nature  of  an  un¬ 
changing  consciousness  ?  How  can  a  timeless 
Absolute  be  the  unity  which  underlies  and  sup¬ 
ports  a  community  of  existences  which  are  appar¬ 
ently  subject  to  all  the  conditions  of  time,  and 
which  are  historically  conditioned  in  their  life 
and  growth  ?  Finite  experience  implies  an  abso¬ 
lute  experience.  But  does  not  the  thinkable 
nature  of  this  Absolute  involve  the  conclusion 
that  finite  experience  as  such  is  illusory  ?  If  this 
conclusion  be  involved  in  our  idea  of  the  Abso¬ 
lute,  then  we  shall  be  forced  to  admit  the  utter 
unreality  of  finite  progress,  and  indeed  the  thor¬ 
oughgoing  phenomenality  of  all  psychical  activity 
which  takes  place  in  time,  i.e .,  the  illusoriness  of 
historical  experience.  This  is  our  central  prob¬ 
lem,  and  before  we  can  take  a  step  further  to¬ 
wards  solving  it  we  must  inquire  what  the  time- 
process  means. 


THE  TIME-PROCESS 


!39 


2.  The  Evolutionary  or  Historical 1  Process — The 
Genesis  and  Growth  of  the  Individual  is  its 
Meaning . 

The  possibility  of  interpreting  the  world  of 
experience  as  a  development  in  time  rests  on  the 
presupposition  that  in  the  whole  process  there  is 
an  ascending  series  of  differences  in  value ,  in  de¬ 
gree  of  approximation  towards  an  End  or  Goal. 
The  evolutionary  process  is  not  a  dead-level.  It 
does  not  work  as  a  treadmill.  The  complexity 
of  the  evolving  world  is  a  complexity  of  values , 
i.e.}  of  meanings  defined  with  reference  to  an  end 
or  to  ends.  Now,  if  there  be  a  unity  in  the  proc¬ 
ess,  the  meaning  of  the  whole  time-process  must 
be  that  the  highest  values  given  in  experience 
more  fully  express  the  significance  of  the  entire 
movement  than  the  lower  values.  The  finite  self, 
which  is  an  experiencing  centre  in  the  evolution¬ 
ary  process,  feels  directly  and  acts  categorically 
on  the  conviction  that  certain  features  of  its  ex¬ 
perience  are  higher  in  value  than  others.  The 
appraisement  of  temporal  experience  in  terms  of 
a  scale  of  values  is  the  assertion  of  the  will-to-live 
by  our  social  individual.  It  is  the  expression  of 
the  inner  nature  of  the  finite  self  in  a  universe  of 

1  N.B." — I  use  the  word  “  historical  ”  to  designate  the  entire 
process  of  development  in  time,  in  so  far  as  this  is  capable  of  a 
rational  interpretation.  In  this  sense  an  absolutely  unrelated 
fact  would  be  unhistorical. 


i40  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


selves.  The  more  nearly  complete  a  self  is  the 
more  fully  does  it  find  its  will-to-live  realized  in 
those  experiences  of  higher  value  which  are  found 
in  science,  the  ethical  life,  art,  and  religion.  It 
is  in  these  higher  experiences  that  the  selves 
which  society  admits  to  be  most  nearly  perfect 
find  their  satisfaction. 

If,  then,  philosophy  is  to  find  a  principle  for 
the  interpretation  of  the  process  of  temporal  and 
historical  evolution,  it  must  read  the  whole  proc¬ 
ess  in  the  light  of  the  highest,  richest,  and  most 
comprehensive  experience  of  the  finite  self.  All 
philosophical  procedure  must  in  the  end  be  an¬ 
thropomorphic,  or,  to  coin  a  word  derived  from 
that  part  of  man  in  which  are  embodied  the 
higher  experiences  we  have  mentioned,  philoso¬ 
phy  must  be  pneumatomorphic.  Phenomena 
must  be  interpreted  finally  (if  they  are  to  be  in¬ 
terpreted  at  all)  in  terms  of  human  self-conscious¬ 
ness.  It  is  quite  as  reasonable  to  ask  a  man  to 
jump  out  of  his  skin  as  to  demand  that  the  phi¬ 
losopher  divest  himself  of  anthropomorphism. 
The  highest  category  for  the  interpretation  of 
experience  should  be  self-evidencing,  and  by  its 
inclusion  and  reconciliation  of  all  the  lower  cate¬ 
gories  it  should  be  self-justifying.  If  all  the 
categories  are  drawn  from  self-experience  their 
respective  claims  can  be  adjusted  only  by  a  con¬ 
sideration  of  their  contributions  to  the  deepest 
and  most  abiding  human  experience,  or,  in  other 


THE  FINITE  INDIVIDUAL 


141 

words,  by  the  measure  in  which  they  promote 
the  most  intense,  continuous,  and  harmonious 
activity  of  consciousness.  A  philosophy  which 
abandons  at  the  outset  (as  Mr.  Spencer’s  does) 
the  higher  and  more  inclusive  categories  of  self- 
consciousness  as  anthropomorphic  and  then  in¬ 
terprets  the  world-process  by  means  of  a  category 
which  is  the  product  of  a  one-sided  and  hence 
abstract  phase  of  thought  performs  the  double 
feat  of  first  destroying  the  ground  on  which  it 
stands  and  then  contradicting  itself.  All  cate¬ 
gories  of  thought  are  but  shorthand  expressions 
for  particular  aspects  of  experience,  and  hence 
the  final  category  must  be  that  one  which  best 
expresses  the  wholeness  and  unity  of  experience. 

If  we  accept  provisionally  the  world  of  experi¬ 
ence  as  a  process  in  time,  and  if  we  make  use  of 
the  method  of  interpretation  just  stated,  we  have 
to  inquire  whether  the  world-process  has  a  single, 
unitary  meaning. 

Positive  science  furnishes  us  with  a  fairly  com¬ 
plete  account  of  the  history  of  our  world.  The 
nebular  theory,  the  Darwinian  theory,  and  the 
consequent  developments  of  evolutionary  thought 
have  enabled  us  to  frame  a  pretty  coherent  and 
definite  view  of  the  development  of  the  section 
of  the  universe  in  which  we  are  planted.  There 
is  not  here  space  or  occasion  to  give  a  detailed 
account  of  the  process  of  cosmic  evolution.  What 
I  desire  to  emphasize  is  that  the  evolutionary 


142  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


theory  of  this  world,  when  thought  out,  implies 
the  doctrine  that  the  history  of  our  world  is  the 
story  of  the  development  of  individuality.1  Aris¬ 
totle  had  already  emphasized  this  principle. 
The  individual  occupies  the  central  place  in  his 
doctrine  of  evolution,  and  indeed  in  his  meta¬ 
physical  theory,  but  was  lost  sight  of  until  the 
breaking  up  of  scholasticism.  Leibniz  reinstated 
the  individual  to  his  rightful  place  in  modern 
philosophy.  To  come  down  to  the  nineteenth 
century,  Mr.  Spencer  rightly  defines  evolution  as 
a  passage  from  an  indefinite,  incoherent  homo¬ 
geneity  to  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity, 
brought  about  by  a  process  of  differentiation  and 
integration.2  Mr.  Clifford  says,  in  his  essay  on 
Cosmic  Emotion,  that  the  tendency  of  the  organic 
process  is  to  personify  itself.3  The  same  doctrine 
finds  expression  in  Schopenhauer’s  theory  that 
the  “  will-to-live  ”  is  the  source  of  individual  ex¬ 
istences.  These  instances  indicate  the  wide  rec¬ 
ognition  of  the  principle  of  individuality  as  a 
guide  to  the  interpretation  of  the  processes  of 
organic  and  general  cosmic  evolution. 

The  same  principle  furnishes  the  key  to  the 
interpretation  of  human  history  as  a  continuous 

1  See  Mr.  Spencer’s  works,  J.  Le  Conte’s  Evolution  in  its  Re¬ 
lation  to  Religious  Thought ,  and  John  Fiske’s  Destiny  of  Man. 

2  Data  of  Ethics,  chap,  v.,  etc.  ;  First  Principles ,  part  ii. , 
chap.  xvii. 

3  Lectures  and  Essays,  p.  41 1. 


THE  FINITE  INDIVIDUAL 


*43 


process  of  development.  Hegel  has  this  prin¬ 
ciple  in  mind  when  he  defines  history  as  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  consciousness  of  freedom.  Sir 
H.  S.  Maine  gives  expression  to  the  same  doc¬ 
trine  when  he  so  neatly  and  pregnantly  sums  up 
the  development  of  human  society  as  a  progress 
“  from  status  to  contract.”  Fichte  and  Schleier- 
macher,  as  we  have  seen,  both  interpret  history 
in  terms  of  individuality,  although  with  very 
important  differences.  (John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his 
essay  On  Liberty ,  lays  stress  on  the  worth  of  indi¬ 
viduality  as  a  guiding  principle  in  politics,  and 
perhaps  the  greatest  service  rendered  by  English 
political  and  economic  liberalism  has  been  the 
bringing  about  of  a  practical  recognition  of  the 
worth  and  dignity  of  the  individual.  It  is  true 
that  this  school  of  political  thought  was  fre¬ 
quently  blind  to  the  social  dependence  of  the 
individual.)  But,  on  the  whole,  it  must  be  said 
that  the  philosophy  of  history  has  lagged  far  be¬ 
hind  the  natural  sciences  in  the  general  develop¬ 
ment  of  thought  during  the  last  hundred  years. 
To-day,  with  our  wider  historical  horizon  and 
our  much  richer  materials  for  comparative  study, 
together  with  a  clearer  insight  into  the  psycho¬ 
logical  relations  of  the  individual  to  society,  we 
are  in  a  much  better  position  than  were  the 
immediate  successors  of  Kant  to  carry  out  in 
detail  and  with  more  positive  verification  the  in¬ 
terpretation  of  the  historical  process  in  terms  of 


144  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


individuality.  What  is  here  offered  is  but  the 
barest  outline. 

Practically  the  principle  of  the  worth  of  indi¬ 
viduality  receives  very  inadequate  recognition 
in  our  social  life.  Its  two  greatest  enemies  are 
superficial  and  mechanical  systems  of  education 
and  extreme  socialism.1 

The  world  of  our  present  experience  is  one  of 
concrete  individuals,  and  its  movement  is  towards 
completer  individualization.  When  we  try  to  re¬ 
construct  the  past  history  of  the  world,  we  see 
at  the  beginning,  as  the  result  of  our  analysis, 
only  the  featureless  primordial  elements  out  of 
which,  it  is  assumed,  our  present  world  of  mani¬ 
fold  content  has  been  evolved.  The  meaning  of 
the  world-process  grows  less  clear  as  we  recede 
in  our  analysis,  and  finally  fades  out  of  sight  in 
the  twilight  that  envelops  all  temporal  origins. 
All  that  is  left  by  the  physical  philosopher  at  the 
dawn  of  our  cosmical  history  are  a  nebulous  mist 
and  a  few  laws  of  motion. 

When  we  reach  the  last  step  in  the  analysis  of 

1  For  an  interesting  and  valuable  treatment  of  the  individual’s 
place  in  nature  see  N.  S.  Shaler’s  “  The  Individual:  a  Study  of 
Life  and  Death.”  The  metaphysical  importance  of  the  individual 
was  first  clearly  brought  to  light  in  modern  times  by  Leibniz, 
although  the  principle  was  recognized  by  Giordano  Bruno.  A 
fresh  and  stimulating  treatment  of  the  problem  will  be  found  in 
Josiah  Royce’s  “  The  World  and  the  Individual.”  I  regret  that 
this  work  did  not  appear  in  time  for  me  to  make  any  use  of  its 
very  suggestive  treatment  of  the  subject. 


THE  FINITE  INDIVIDUAL 


145 


the  evolutionary  process,  i.e.,  the  first  step  in 
the  evolution  itself,  we  are  unable  to  reverse  the 
process  and  see  how  the  synthesis  took  place 
which  brought  forth  the  present  world  of  our 
concrete  experience.  We  cannot  do  more  than 
note  some  of  the  successive  phases  in  the  devel¬ 
opment,  unless  we  go  behind  the  time-process 
itself.  At  this  point  the  pure  evolutionist  comes 
to  a  standstill.  For  the  inner  principle  of  the  de¬ 
velopment  must  be  presupposed  as  already  exist¬ 
ent  in  the  elements,  unless  the  development  be 
explained  as  the  result  of  supernatural  interven¬ 
tion  or  regarded  as  inexplicable.  Hence,  philoso¬ 
phy  is  justified  in  taking  its  point  of  departure  in 
the  world  of  present  experience ,  and  in  refusing  to 
accept  the  abstract  and  hypothetical  elements 
out  of  which  we  are  told  the  world  has  been  built 
up  as  the  final  explanation  of  the  world-process. 
This  explanation  is  to  be  found  by  the  interpre¬ 
tation  of  the  past  in  the  light  of  our  concrete 
present  experience.  It  cannot  be  discovered  by 
the  dissolution  of  that  experience  into  such  ab¬ 
stractions  as  atoms  and  laws  of  motion,  which  of 
themselves  are  entirely  inadequate  to  explain  the 
origin  and  growth  of  our  present  world  of  indi¬ 
viduals.  It  is  abandoning  interpretation  alto¬ 
gether  to  accept  a  “  thing-in-itself,"  whether  it 
be  “  energy,"  "  mind-stuff,"  or  the  **  uncon¬ 
scious  "  as  the  ultimate  explanation  of  experi¬ 
ence.  If  reality  is  present  at  all  in  the  time-pro- 


10 


1 46  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


cess,  then  its  nature  is  most  adequately  revealed 
in  the  later  phases  of  the  history  of  the  time- 
process,  not  at  the  beginning. 

Natural  science  has  shown  the  evolution  of  the 
world  to  be  a  progressive  growth  in  organization. 
We  find  an  ascending  series  of  individualizations, 
culminating  in  man.  In  inorganic  nature  the 
crystal  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  example  of 
individualization.  The  individual  character  of 
the  lowest  organisms  is  very  vague  compared 
with  the  crystal.  But  the  primitive  organism, 
unlike  the  crystal,  possesses  mobility  and  respon¬ 
siveness  to  the  demands  of  its  environment.  It 
has,  from  the  first,  a  hidden  individuality.  Indi¬ 
vidualization  grows  more  nearly  perfect  ( i.e .,  at 
once  more  complex  and  more  integrated)  as  we 
ascend  in  the  scale  of  animal  life,  and  this  growth 
is  indicated  by  an  increasing  responsiveness  to 
environmental  influences.  Somewhere  on  the 
scale  the  mobile  and  sensitive  structure  is  lighted 
up  by  consciousness  which,  at  first,  is  doubtless 
nothing  more  than  a  dim  feeling  of  reaction 
against  the  environment.  The  sense  of  hunger 
and  the  feeling  which  accompanies  the  reproduc¬ 
tive  instinct  are  probably  at  first  the  sole  or  at 
least  the  predominant  factors  of  consciousness. 
After  this  point  has  been  reached  the  most  in¬ 
teresting  and  characteristic  aspect  in  the  growth 
of  individuality  is  the  psychical  aspect.  Where, 
in  the  scale  of  life,  the  first  glimmerings  of  feel- 


THE  FINITE  INDIVIDUAL 


147 


ing  light  up  the  organic  structure  we  cannot  say. 
Nor  can  we  determine  precisely  where  the  first 
vague  and  undifferentiated  feeling-consciousness1 
gets  distinguished  into  the  sense  of  subject  and 
object.  But  we  know  that  in  man  the  process 
reaches  clear  self-consciousness  or  personality. 
Wherever  it  is  present,  consciousness  has  a  unity 
of  its  own  by  virtue  of  which  it  is.  This  essen¬ 
tial  unity  forbids  us  to  regard  consciousness  as 
produced  by  the  fusion  of  elements  that  are  dis¬ 
continuous,  whether  in  the  forms  of  “  atoms  of 
mind-stuff  ”  or  “  something  of  the  same  order  as 
a  nervous  shock.”  The  unity  of  the  rudimentary 
feeling-consciousness  must  hold  good  no  matter 
how  far  down  one  places  consciousness  in  the 
scale  of  animal  life. 

But  it  is  not,  therefore,  necessary  to  regard 
consciousness  as  a  miracle,  superinduced  from 
without  at  a  certain  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
organisms.  The  progressive  organization  of  life 
points  us  to  the  hypothesis  of  organizing  princi¬ 
ples  resident  and  active  in  the  process  of  organic 
evolution,  i.e.,  to  “  principles  of  individualiza¬ 
tion,”  as  the  inner  ground  or  bearer  of  the  de¬ 
velopment.  It  may  be  objected  that  to  set  up 
“principles  of  individuality”  is  once  more  to 

1  By  this  term  I  designate  the  immediate  feeling  state  of  a 
soul  in  which  the  distinctions  of  reflective  thinking  and  of  delib¬ 
erate  volition  have  not  arisen  and  in  which,  therefore,  all  is  direct 
feeling  and  impulse. 


148  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


bring  in  the  “  Ding-an-sich."  But  by  “princi¬ 
ple  of  individuality”  is  not  meant  a  mysterious, 
unknowable  entity  lying  motionless  behind  phe¬ 
nomena.  The  phrase  expresses  the  inherent  ten¬ 
dency  of  organic  life,  and  therefore  of  the  whole 
cosmic  process,  to  express  itself  in  individuals. 
This  tendency  is  an  impulse  or  inner  activity. 
But  the  individuals  have  not  an  absolutely  inde¬ 
pendent  existence.  Such  an  independence  would 
be  fatal  to  their  genuine  participation  in  the 
world-process,  which  I  take  to  be  a  fact  of  ex¬ 
perience.  I  admit  that  this  idea  of  individuality 
as  the  end  of  the  cosmic  process  is  vague.  Here 
I  am  only  outlining  fundamental  principles.  The 
concept  of  individuality  as  the  end  can  get  defini¬ 
tion  only  by  being  carried  out  in  ethics,  aesthetics, 
the  Philosophy  of  Religion  and  of  History,  and, 
above  all,  in  the  practice  of  living.  The  phe¬ 
nomena  of  these  different  phases  of  human  activ¬ 
ity  would  so  be  interpreted  and  evaluated  in  so 
far  as  they  contribute  to  the  fullest  individuality 
and  individuality  would  be  seen  to  be  realized  in 
the  various  forms  of  civilized  life.  In  practice  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  democracy  in  its  present 
phase  favours  the  full  growth  of  individuality. 

The  world  of  social  and  historical  experience  is 
the  product  of  the  interacting  impulses  of  these 
“  principles  of  individualization.”  These  grow 
through  intercourse  with  one  another  and  with 
their  environment.  (In  speaking  of  the  external 


THE  FINITE  INDIVIDUAL 


149 


world  I  have  already  indicated  what  “  environ¬ 
ment  ”  must  mean.)  Individuals  must  have  been, 
from  the  first,  centres  of  activity,  developing 
through  reciprocal  action,  but  without  a  clear 
consciousness  of  selfhood.  Through  their  very 
interaction  they  would  be  awakened  to  full  self- 
consciousness.  It  may  be  objected  that  we  do 
not  know  how  an  unconscious  individual  could 
develop  a  self-consciousness.  The  objection  is 
valid.  But  there  is  no  need,  and,  indeed,  on  our 
premises,  there  is  no  good  ground,  for  assuming 
that  a  real  individual  ever  existed  in  absolute  un¬ 
consciousness.  I  am  not  prepared  to  define  the 
lower  limits  of  consciousness  in  the  organic  world. 
Nor  can  I  define  the  conditions  of  organized  struc¬ 
ture  which  accompany  the  rudiments  of  conscious¬ 
ness.  If  two  distinct  and  conscious  personalities 
can  exist  in  one  human  organization,1  an  undiffer¬ 
entiated  unity  of  feeling,  i.e.,  a  rudimentary  self- 
consciousness,  may  have  its  seat  in  that  which 
does  not  appear  to  us  to  be  a  definitively  individ¬ 
ual  structure.  Perhaps  there  is  a  feeling-unity 
in  a  colony  of  polyps.  If  highly  organized  indi¬ 
viduality  of  structure  does  not  shut  out  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  two  distinct  consciousnesses,  why  should 
an  imperfect  organization  of  structure  preclude 
the  presence  of  one  vague  consciousness  ?  But, 
of  course,  the  distinction  between  mere  conscious¬ 
ness  and  self-consciousness  must  not  be  lost  sight 
1  I  refer  to  the  well-known  facts  of  double-personality. 


150  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


of.  The  difference  does  not  seem  to  me  merely 
one  of  degree,  and  I  confess  that  I  am  unable  to 
conceive  the  transition  as  taking  place  by  a  grad¬ 
ual  and  imperceptible  growth,  i. c. ,  as  simply  a 
product  of  evolution.  The  difference  between 
a  mere  consciousness  and  a  self-consciousness 
seems  to  me  to  be  an  absolute  one,  and  identical 
with  the  difference  between  a  phenomenal  or  im¬ 
perfect  individual  and  a  real  or  perfect  individual. 
(The  latter  maybe  finite,  but  perfect  in  its  kind.) 
My  conception  of  experience  as  the  only  intelli¬ 
gible  and  actual  datum  for  the  knowledge  of  real¬ 
ity  involves  the  doctrine  that  everything  which 
possesses  reality  in  any  kind  or  degree  must  be¬ 
long  to  an  experience,  i.e .,  that  it  must  apper¬ 
tain  to  consciousness.  Now,  inasmuch  as  there 
are  many  degrees  and  kinds  of  reality  given  in 
experience,  there  must  be  many  grades  of  indi¬ 
viduality,  and  every  sort  of  individuality  must 
have  some  consciousness.  But  since  I  cannot 
find  a  conceivable  transition  from  a  mere  con¬ 
sciousness  to  a  self-consciousness,  and  since  a 
true  individual  has  been  defined  as  a  self-con¬ 
sciousness,  imperfect  individuals  (i.e.,  those  who 
are  not  self-conscious)  can  exist  only  as  related 
to  the  experience  of  a  true  individual. 

However,  to  return  to  surer  ground,  every  one 
of  us  has  experience  of  a  self-conscious  individ¬ 
uality  which  periodically  lapses  into  subconscious 
or  vague  feeling-states  in  sleep  and  dreams. 


THE  FINITE  INDIVIDUAL 


151 

Whatever  be  the  explanation  of  the  state  of  the 
self  during  the  various  forms  of  natural  and  in¬ 
duced  unconsciousness  (so  called),  perhaps  a  sim¬ 
ilar  explanation  will  apply  to  the  state  of  the  self 
in  the  earlier  stages  of  its  growth.  If  our  semi- 
unconscious  states  are  due  to  the  suspension  of 
certain  complex  neural  activities,  perhaps  the 
earlier  phases  of  our  lives  as  conscious  beings 
were  conditioned  by  the  imperfect  development 
of  the  same  neural  activities.  At  any  rate,  the 
difficulties  in  conceiving  the  continued  existence 
of  the  self  are  similar  in  both  cases. 

I  have  indicated  my  conception  of  the  growth 
of  consciousness.  The  individual  in  its  clear, 
self-conscious  experience  is  continuous  with  the 
primitive  individual,  which,  although  it  is  from 
the  beginning  the  active  centre  of  growth  or  the 
impulse  to  its  own  development,  has  at  first  only 
a  vague  unity  of  self-feeling.  A  finite  centre  of 
consciousness  in  many  of  its  higher  phases  is  not 
clearly  conscious  of  and  for  itself.  But  the  unity 
of  self-feeling  which  is  the  basis  of  the  clearest 
self-consciousness  must  always  be  present.  Other¬ 
wise  the  uniqueness  of  the  individual  is  lost. 

Does  the  evolutionary  process  consist  solely  of 
individuals  in  interaction  ?  This  brings  us  to  the 
question  of  how  individuals  in  their  genesis  and 
growth  maintain  relations  towards  one  another. 
As  parts  of  the  world-process  individuals  develop 
in  a  relationship  that  is  organic  or  social  in  the 


152  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


sense  that  no  individual  can  exist  and  grow  in 
total  isolation  from  the  rest.  This  means  that 
individuals  interact,  and  history  is  the  theatre  of 
their  interaction.  For  without  interaction  it  is 
impossible  to  understand  how  the  individuals 
could  undergo  any  change  or  develop  in  any  way. 
The  inner  principle  of  individuality  in  each  case 
must  have  stimuli  to  start  it  and  keep  it  going, 
as  well  as  material  to  work  into  its  own  organic 
structure.  The  world-process  is  essentially  an 
interrelated  whole,  and  to  deny  interaction  of  its 
parts  is  to  make  its  unity  inconceivable  and  im- 
’  possible.  An  individual  absolutely  independent 
of  any  other  individual  would  have  no  relation  to 
finite  experience. 

Let  us  recall  the  results  of  our  first  analysis  of 
experience,  and  we  may  find  a  notion  which  will 
make  clear  the  unity  of  the  evolutionary  process. 
We  have  presented  in  our  experience  what  com¬ 
mon  sense  calls  hit er action  between  selves.  Now, 
when  we  speak  of  interaction  between  individuals, 
we  tacitly  assume  a  medium  of  the  interaction 
placed  between  the  related  individuals  as  its 
bearer.  So  long  as  the  individuals  are  held  apart 
we  must  go  on  assuming  fresh  media,  new  terms 
of  relation  to  the  original  assumed  relations  of 
interaction.  The  individuals,  whose  development 
constitutes  the  world-process,  grow  by  going  out¬ 
side  of  themselves.  If  each  were  absolutely  iso¬ 
lated  no  forward  movement  would  be  possible. 


THE  FINITE  INDIVIDUAL 


153 


Relationships  of  interaction  are  the  conditions  of 
a  living  growth.  The  relationships  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  constantly  carry  him  beyond  himself.  Now, 
if  we  place  the  relationships  between  the  individ¬ 
uals  but  external  to  them,  we  shut  out  the  pos¬ 
sibility  of  a  real  reciprocal  influence,  and  our 
network  of  growing  individuals  (which  we  con¬ 
ceive  to  be  the  world-process)  falls  to  pieces. 
We  do  not  get  over  the  difficulty  by  inventing 
new  terms  of  relationship  to  connect  the  first 
relationships  of  individuals  conceived  as  origi¬ 
nally  isolated.  We  may  carry  on  this  process  of 
making  connections  ad  libitum.  But  an  infinite 
series  of  relationships  without  any  real  centres 
of  relationship  is  a  non-entity.  We  move  over 
a  hanging  cobweb  of  thought  without  finding  a 
solid  resting-place  anywhere.  We  build  bridges 
in  mid-stream  without  ever  reaching  the  shore. 
In  this  way  the  individuals,  which  are  the  real 
factors  in  the  evolutionary  or  historical  process, 
fade  into  nothingness.  The  process  takes  place 
without  anything  to  proceed.  Relationships  are 
established  without  anything  to  be  related.  The 
only  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is  to  conceive  the 
relations  of  interaction  as  directly  proceeding 
from  and  directly  entering  into  the  individuals 
themselves,  i.e.,  as  expressive  of  and  involved  in 
their  very  nature.  But  since  each  individual  is 
finite  and  dependent,  passive  as  well  as  active, 
this  conception  of  the  relationship  of  individuals 


154  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


is  not  possible  unless  the  finite  individual  is  a 
centre  in  a  larger  system. 

The  world-process,  then,  must  ultimately  be  a 
system.  The  development  of  finite  individuals  is 
dependent  on  a  unity  of  existence  which  underlies 
and  carries  forward  the  entire  evolutionary  pro¬ 
cess.  Finite  individuals,  as  participating  in  the 
world-process,  are  not  wholly  independent  centres 
of  action.  They  are  conscious  foci  or  concentra¬ 
tion  and  radiation  points  for  and  in  the  activity 
of  the  whole.  They  are  elements  or  constituent 
units  in  the  one  system  of  reality,  and  this  system 
is  a  highly  complex  Individuality .  I  cannot  tell 
how  individuals  come  to  be  points  of  relative 
independence  in  one  system.  I  cannot  tell  how 
Being  as  we  experience  it  in  all  its  concrete 
diversity  and  manifoldness  was  made.  I  must 
be  content  to  comprehend  it  as  it  is,  i.e.,  as  it 
manifests  itself. 

My  theory,  so  far,  has  said  nothing  in  regard 
to  the  persistence  of  the  individuals  as  they  may 
appear  to  exist  at  any  given  time,  or  the  preser¬ 
vation  by  them  of  their  present  measure  of  con¬ 
sciousness.  That  the  individuals  influence  one 
another  as  differentiations  in  one  system  may  be 
fatal  to  the  substantiality  of  a  given  individual. 
The  whole  may  shift  its  arrangements,  so  that 
what  is  now  apparently  an  individual  may  be  dis¬ 
integrated.  But  I  think  we  are  justified  in  say¬ 
ing  that  the  development  of  individuals  is  the 


THE  TIME-PROCESS 


155 


meaning,  or  part  of  the  meaning,  of  the  evolution 
of  our  section  of  the  universe  from  its  nebulous 
beginnings  to  the  present  stage  of  historical  de¬ 
velopment. 

If  the  unity  which  the  world-  process  involves 
and  on  which  it  depends  is  the  Absolute  Reality , 
then  the  latter  expresses  itself  in  time  by  the 
production  and  development  of  finite  selves 
or  spirits.  The  meaning  of  the  time-process 
is  the  growth  of  a  world  of  individuals.  In  order 
that  there  may  be  such  a  world  there  must  be 
a  Unity  behind  finite  individuals,  i.e.,  an  Abso¬ 
lute  Individual  who  is  the  source  of  the  finite 
selves  and  the  groundof  their  development  in  time. 
The  interpretation  of  the  time-process  has  led  me 
to  the  same  result  as  the  former  analysis  of  expe¬ 
rience  without  specific  reference  to  its  temporal  as¬ 
pect.  In  both  cases  I  reach  an  Absolute  Individual. 

But  the  Absolute  Individual  of  the  first  part, 
so  far  as  our  analysis  of  experience  went,  was  time¬ 
less.  The  Individual,  as  he  has  just  been  defined, 
lives,  works,  and  manifests  himself  under  the 
conditions  of  time.  This  seems  fatal  to  his  Ab¬ 
soluteness  and  Perfection.  Can  we  discover  sug¬ 
gestions  of  a  reconciliation  ? 

3.  The  Absolute  and  the  Time-Process — The 
Terms  of  their  Union. 

The  consideration  of  human  experience  with¬ 
out  reference  to  time  led  us  to  the  idea  of  an 


156  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


Absolute,  Self-conscious  Unity  of  Experience — in 
other  words,  to  an  Absolute  Individual  or  Self. 
The  consideration  of  the  world-process  led  to  the 
doctrine  that  the  finite  individuals,  which  ex¬ 
press,  in  their  development,  the  meaning  of  that 
process,  can  have  so  developed  only  if  there  is 
one  originating  and  sustaining  principle  of  the 
development.  The  development  of  individuals 
culminates  (so  far  as  we  know)  in  the  human  self. 
The  latter  finds  its  own  realization  in  the  attain¬ 
ment  and  enjoyment  of  truth ,  beauty ,  and  goodness 
as  factors  in  the  living  unity  of  its  experience. 
To  possess  this  sort  of  nature  is  to  be  a  spirit  or 
ethical  self.  The  meaning,  or  an  integral  part  of 
the  meaning,  of  the  world-process,  then,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  development  of  spiritual  individuals. 
Therefore  the  active  principle  which  originates  and 
sustains  the  processes  of  finite  growth  must  itself 
be  spiritual.  The  earlier  analysis  of  experience  led 
to  the  doctrine  that  the  ultimate  reality  is  the 
Conscious  Unity  of  Experience ,  i.e.,  the  Absolute 
Individual  or  Self.  It  appears  now  that  this  In¬ 
dividual,  considered  in  his  relations  to  the  world- 
process,  may  properly  be  regarded  as  spiritual. 

But  if  we  undertake  to  characterize  the  perfect 
Unity  of  Experience  in  terms  derived  from  the 
finite  self  we  seem  to  vitiate  its  nature.  For  the 
finite  self  is  but  a  part  of  the  world-process,  and 
shares  in  all  the  imperfections  of  the  temporal 
and  visible  world.  It  exists  in  space.  It  changes 


THE  TIME-PROCESS 


15  7 


in  time.  It  is  active  only  against  obstacles  or 
in  response  to  stimulation  from  without.  It  is 
tarnished  by  evil !  Can  the  attributes  of  such  a 
being  afford  us  any  hint  as  to  the  nature  of  a  per¬ 
fect  Spirit  ?  Is  it  not  inconceivable,  to  begin  with, 
that  an  unchanging  Absolute  should  manifest  him¬ 
self  in  space  and  time  ? 

The  relation  of  space  to  Absolute  Reality  must 
here  be  dealt  with  briefly.  The  notion  of  space 
is  involved  in  contradictions,  for  a  statement  of 
which  the  reader  is  referred  to  Mr.  Bradley’s 
Appearance  and  Reality,  chap.  iii.  A  space- 
world  seems  to  have  no  necessary  relation  to  con¬ 
scious  existence.  I  can  conceive  of  real  non- 
spatial  existence.  Consciousness  itself  does  not 
occupy  a  definite  position  in  space  ;  and  if  we 
cannot  definitely  localize  consciousness  in  space 
it  would  seem  that  the  latter  cannot  be  a  neces¬ 
sary  condition  of  the  existence  of  consciousness. 
Consciousness  is  the  condition  of  spatial  existence. 
If  when  we  endeavor  to  think  space  as  a  real 

X 

existence  we  become  involved  in  insoluble  con¬ 
tradictions,  we  may  admit  its  unreality.  For,  at 
best,  it  seems  to  be  the  form  of  outer  experience 
only.  Space  may  be  the  illusory  and  pictorial  way 
in  which  the  human  imagmation  figures  to  itself 
objectivity.  Now,  the  true  meaning  of  objectivity 
is  an  existence  independent  of  the  passing  moment 
of  a  finite  consciousness.  Its  apparent  mean¬ 
ing  is  existence  outside  the  finite  consciousness. 


158  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


Hence,  space  is  perhaps  the  imaginative  form 
which  the  human  mind  gives  to  objective  exist¬ 
ence.  The  reality  underlying  the  idea  of  space 
is  the  total  world  of  experience,  in  which  the  finite 
self  is  a  constituent  element. 

The  question  as  to  the  reality  of  time  is  more 
fundamental  and  more  serious.  For  “ process ,  de¬ 
velopment,  progress','  are  all  conceptions  which  in¬ 
volve  time.  Time  is  the  form  in  which  we  expe¬ 
rience  all  things.  Nevertheless  it  cannot  be  real 
as  we  experience  it,  since  it  is  full  of  inconsis¬ 
tencies.  When  we  attempt  to  conceive  time  as 
divided  either  finitely  or  infinitely  we  fall  into 
contradictions.  The  attempt  to  reconstruct  in 
thought  the  apparent  immediacy  of  time,  i.e .,  to 
think  the  “  now,”  is  likewise  involved  in  contra¬ 
dictions.1  To  think  any  instant  of  time  as  pres¬ 
ent  is  to  seek  its  relations  to  a  “  before  ”  and  an 
“  after.”  But  in  thinking  these  relations  the  in¬ 
stant  the  “  now  ”  is  lost  the  present  is  dissolved. 
We  find  ourselves  involved  in  an  endless  search  for 
the  final  term  in  a  network  of  relationships.  The 
present  moment  seems  to  be  most  real,  but  when 
we  try  to  seize  it  in  thought  we  find  it  fades  into 
the  past  and  the  future,  and  these  again  get  their 
reality  only  from  their  relations  to  the  present 
moment.  The  present  seems  to  be  the  only  part 
of  time  which  has  reality,  and  this  reality  is  im¬ 
mediate,  i.e.,  it  cannot  be  reconstructed  in  thought. 

1  See  Bradley,  Appearance  and  Reality ,  chap.  iv. 


THE  TIME-PROCESS 


159 


It  has  been  assumed  in  this  essay  that  the 
spiritual  life  of  man  is  in  some  sense  real  and 
has  a  positive  relation  to  the  Absolute.  Now,  the 
spiritual  life  of  man  appears  to  be  progressive. 
Man  is  essentially  a  historically  conditioned  being. 
He  is  engaged  in  an  unceasing  struggle  to  over¬ 
come  the  shortcomings  and  contradictions  of  his 
own  nature.  He  forever  strives  to  reach  a  goal 
which  is  set  before  him  by  his  own  aspirations. 
Man’s  strivings  make  up  the  passion  and  the 
pathos  of  history.  Does  the  Absolute  participate 
in  the  struggles  of  history  ?  Does  he  share  in  the 
joys  and  sorrows  of  humanity?  Has  he  an  inter¬ 
est  in  human  striving?  If  he  has  not,  if  our  ethi¬ 
cal  experiences  are  not  in  some  way  shared  by  the 
absolute  Being,  then  our  struggles  are  finite  illu¬ 
sions.  If  our  progress  has  no  bearing  on  his  life, 
then  all  our  efforts  to  attain  the  higher  life  are 
but  shadows  playing  on  the  shifting  scenes  of  the 
world-farce,  then  all  our  higher  aspirations  are 
mere  phantasms,  born  of  some  meaningless  distri¬ 
bution  of  the  elements  of  the  cosmos,  to  die  away 
when  the  mechanism  of  the  whole  readjusts  itself. 
If  we  deny  that  human  progress  affects  the  life  of 
the  Absolute  Being,  then  we  assert  that  he  is  a 
mere  static  unity,  without  any  of  those  qualities 
which  we  know  as  spiritual  or  living . 

If  it  be  said  that  a  Being  who  is  eternally  at 
one  with  himself,  and  who  knows  not,  or  if  he 
knows  feels  not ,  the  struggles  of  finite  spirits  may 


160  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


yet  be  spiritual,  I  answer  that  such  a  being  would 
be  spiritual  in  no  sense  of  the  term  that  touches 
at  any  point  our  own  ethical,  personal  experience. 
Spiritual  life  signifies  the  livingness  and  progress  of 
finite  spirits.  It  is  realized  in  the  historical  move¬ 
ment  of  humanity.  If  livingness  and  progress  are 
but  illusions,  when  seen  from  the  point  of  view 
of  Ultimate  Reality,  then  all  the  spiritual  life  we 
strive  after  and  know  is  a  phantasm  and  history 
has  no  ethical  significance.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  he  shares  in  the  life  of  finite  spirits,  if  their  prog¬ 
ress  is  real  to  him,  how  can  the  Absolute  now  be 
perfect?  Will  there  not  forever  be  something 
unrealized  in  him  ?  Will  he  not  be  imperfect  un¬ 
til  finite  spirits  have  reached  their  goal  and  time 
has  ceased  to  be?  So  long  as  we  continue  to 
think  on  the  plane  of  the  discursive  intellect  this 
antinomy  remains  here.  He  who  seeks  exclu¬ 
sively  the  ideal  of  a  static ,  unitary  system  of  being 
may  attain  satisfaction ;  but  he  gets  it  at  the 
expense  of  sacrificing  the  moral  life  on  the  altar 
of  an  abstract  unity.  For  him  history  becomes 
meaningless.  He  who  regards  the  meaning  of 
the  world  as  spiritual,  and  the  meaning  of  our 
section  of  it  as  the  spiritual  growth  of  human  in¬ 
dividuals,  indeed  values  the  ethical  life  of  man 
at  its  highest,  but  he  seems  to  contradict  the 
demands  of  speculative  thought  for  a  timeless 
Absolute. 

If  time  is  absolutely  real,  then  the  absolute  Being 


THE  TIME-PROCESS 


161 


is  subject  to  change  and  hence  imperfect.  For 
time  has  no  meaning  apart  from  change.  If  time 
is  an  utter  illusion,  then  the  life  of  finite  spirits 
is  an  illusion.  We  seem  to  be  impaled  on  the 
horns  of  a  dilemma  !  Is  there  any  escape  ?  Re¬ 
call  the  former  conclusions !  In  the  first  section 
the  Absolute  was  established  as  the  unity  of  the 
system  of  individual  finite  experiences.  In  the 
second  section  the  Absolute  appeared  to  be  the 
originator  and  sustainer  of  the  world-process,  in 
and  by  means  of  which  finite  individuals  develop. 
From  both  standpoints  the  Absolute  is  individual 
and  therefore  concrete  and  complex.  Now,  he 
could  not  be  an  Absolute  in  the  first  sense  without 
manifesting  and  realizing  himself  in  a  system 
of  finite  individuals.  For  it  was  the  finite  char¬ 
acter  of  the  experience  of  human  selves  that  led 
to  the  idea  of  the  Absolute.  Therefore  the  re¬ 
ality  of  finite  individuals  is  involved  in  the  very 
existence  of  the  Absolute.  If  the  Absolute  is 
eternally  perfect  and  complete,  there  can  be  no 
cessation  of  his  self-manifestation  or  self-activity 
in  a  system  of  finite  individuals.  His  absolute 
perfection  is  only  possible  through  his  constant 
production  of  imperfect  individuals  and  the  ful¬ 
filment  of  his  purpose  through  these.  When  the 
genesis  and  activity  of  individuals  ceases  the  Ab¬ 
solute  ceases  to  be  conceivable  as  a  living ,  active 
Spirit. 

Now,  a  given  finite  individual  moves  in  a 


162  modern  conceptions  of  god 


definite  direction  in  the  total  movement  of  the 
Absolute,  which  is  the  eternal  generation  of 
finite  selves.  The  generating  process  must  repeat 
itself  in  a  unique  way  in  the  development  of  each 
finite  self.  Without  this  uniqueness  of  experience 
he  would  not  be  an  individual.  From  the  stand¬ 
point  of  any  given  finite  individual,  then,  the 
whole  process  must  appear  imperfect,  incomplete, 
and  transitory.  When  he  thinks  the  process,  he 
does  so  in  terms  of  his  own  immediate  and  unique 
experience.  But  change  is  an  essential  aspect  of 
his  own  experience  as  a  development.  Time  is 
the  generalization  of  this  individual  experience  of 
change,  which  is  forever  repeating  itself  in  new 
selves.  The  finite  individual  therefore  projects 
his  experience  of  change  out  on  the  world-process 
when  he  thinks  the  latter  as  a  whole  in  which  he 
is  a  part.  Time,  then,  is  the  imaginative,  pictorial 
way  in  which  the  finite  self  represents  his  own 
relatively  real  experience  of  development.  He 
marks  his  own  genesis  and  the  genesis  of  other 
finite  individuals  by  the  idea  of  time.  But  in  his 
most  profound  experiences  the  finite  self  drops 
the  idea  of  time  altogether.  He  becomes  uncon¬ 
scious  of  it.  In  the  contemplation  or  creation  of 
beauty,  in  the  successful  prosecution  of  truth,  in 
the  highest  moral  endeavor,  and  in  the  deepest 
religious  devotion  there  is  no  direct  experience  of 
time.  Indeed,  in  any  experience  in  which  the  self 
has  overcome  contradictions  or  discordances  and 


THE  TIME-PROCESS 


163 

functions  harmoniously  in  the  achievement  of  its 
end ,  the  sense  of  time  is  absent.  These  momen¬ 
tary  and  interrupted  experiences  suggest,  and  in¬ 
deed  partially  contain,  the  goal  of  the  finite  self’s 
growth.  Through  them  abstract  time ,  regarded  as 
a  distinct  entity,  is  seen  to  be  an  illusion.  It  dis¬ 
appears  from  before  the  face  of  the  higher  unity 
of  experience. 

The  time-process,  as  it  appears  to  the  finite  self, 
can  never  be  entirely  real  for  the  Absolute  Indi¬ 
vidual.  Time  is  the  phenomenal  manner  in  which 
their  own  continuous  genesis  appears  to  the  finite 
selves.  For  these,  however,  it  remains  the  gen¬ 
eral  and  enveloping  condition  of  experience, 
although  in  their  deepest  experiences  they  mo¬ 
mentarily  transcend  it.  Its  cessation,  phenomenal 
and  relative  to  us  though  it  be,  would  signify  the 
cessation  of  our  experience  of  the  process  of  our 
own  genesis  and  growth  ;  and,  inasmuch  as  expe¬ 
rience  is  social,  and  hence  we  must  share  in  the 
experience  of  growth  on  the  part  of  other  finite 
individuals,  this  would  mean  the  completion  by 
the  Absolute  of  a  finite  number  of  individuals 
and  the  end  of  all  finite  growth.  This  state  of 
things  would  imply  that  the  activity  of  the  Abso¬ 
lute  at  some  previous  point  in  time  was  imperfect 
and  incomplete.  The  perfection  of  the  Absolute  is 
thinkable  only  if  his  activity  in  the  generation  and 
development  of  finite  individuals  is  forever  full 
and  unceasing.  If  this  activity  be  moving  towards 


1 64  modern  conceptions  of  god 


a  termination,  then  it  must  have  had  a  begin¬ 
ning.  Before  the  inception  of  this  activity,  which 
appears  to  us  under  the  form  of  a  time-process, 
there  must  have  been  a  felt  want  in  the  Absolute 
which  began  to  be  satisfied  with  the  genesis  of 
the  finite,  and  is  first  fully  appeased  at  the  end  of 
the  process.  Then,  of  course,  the  Absolute  could 
not  have  been  perfect  and  complete  before  the 
process  began,  i.e.,  could  not  have  been  the 
Absolute.  We  should  have  to  begin  our  search 
anew. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  have  seen  good 
reason  for  affirming,  the  genesis  of  finite  individ¬ 
uals  is  an  essential  and  eternal  process,  organic 
to  the  very  nature  of  the  Absolute,  this  genesis 
must  go  forward  forever,  and  in  it  the  Absolute 
forever  manifests  his  perfection.  For  in  it  his 
purpose  is  eternally  realized.  Nevertheless,  so 
long  as  there  is  in  the  world  a  single  imperfect 
individual  Time  will  appear  to  him  to  exist.  We 
may  think  the  conditions  under  which  it  arises, 
and  so  convince  ourselves  that  it  is  phenomenal, 
but  in  so  far  as  we  are  still  developing  we  cannot 
get  rid  of  time. 

It  seems  to  follow  that  the  number  of  finite  in¬ 
dividuals  which  is  generated  by  the  activity  of  the 
Absolute  must  be  unlimited.  The  completion  of  a 
limited  number  of  finite  selves  would  seem  to  in¬ 
volve  the  cessation  of  the  activity  by  which  they 
are  generated.  In  each  member  of  the  endless 


THE  TIME-PROCESS. 


165 

series  of  finite  selves  the  illusion  of  a  really  exist¬ 
ent  time  will  of  course  repeat  itself  and  in  turn 
be  transcended.  The  goal  of  development  for 
each  finite  self  will  be  the  attainment  of  that  in¬ 
sight  into  its  relation  to  the  Absolute  and  to  other 
finite  selves  with  the  coming  of  which  the  illusion 
of  an  externally  existent  time  will  fade  away.  In 
the  higher  forms  of  experience  this  goal  seems 
already  to  be  partially  reached.  Whenever  an 
experience  comes  to  which  the  self  would  say, 
could  it  feel  this  experience  to  be  transient,  “  Stay, 
fleeting  moment,  thou  art  so  fair  !  ”  there  seems 
to  be  a  transcendence  of  the  time-process.  But, 
of  course,  while  the  self  directly  feels  the  moment 
to  be  so  fair,  it  can  have  no  fear  of  its  transiency, 
and  hence  will  not  entreat  it  to  stay.  Not 
until  the  momentary  experience  is  disappearing 
does  the  self  entreat  it  to  stay.  This  is  a  paradox 
of  life.  The  highest  experiences  which  transcend 
time  and  contradiction  are  like  angels.  They  must 
be  entertained  unawares.  But  their  reality  is  not 
destroyed  because  they  can  be  fully  evaluated 
only  by  reference  to  the  phenomenal  time-element. 
For,  although  in  itself  illusory,  time  becomes  a 
subordinated  but  necessary  factor  in  the  complete 
experience. 

Perhaps  one  hears  at  this  point  the  objection 
raised  that  we  have  forsaken  pure  thought,  that 
we  have  taken  refuge  in  mystic  insights.  If  it  be 
meant  that  discursive  thought  has  been  abandoned 


1 66  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


as  incapable  by  itself  of  solving  our  problems,  the 
charge  is  admitted.  Discursive  thinking  which 
cannot  take  a  step  not  suggested  by  the  logical 
law  of  identity  takes  living  wholes  of  experience 
to  pieces  in  search  of  laws  of  connection  or  prin¬ 
ciples  of  unity  which,  when  found,  turn  out  to  be 
but  ghosts  and  shadows  of  the  concrete  reality 
from  which  they  are  extracted.  This  analytical 
procedure  is  legitimate  in  itself  and  a  necessary 
step  towards  a  clearer  and  more  penetrating  con¬ 
sciousness  of  reality.  But  in  itself  and  out  of  itself 
discursive  thinking  is  unable  to  reconstruct  real 
experience.  At  the  outset  of  its  analysis  it  is  de¬ 
pendent  on  something  other  than  itself  for  its 
material.  If  its  results  are  to  be  brought  together 
into  a  living  unity  which  will  reflect  at  a  higher 
level  of  insight  the  experience  with  which  analyti¬ 
cal  thinking  started  out,  there  must  take  place 
a  synthesis  of  the  elements  into  which  analyti¬ 
cal  thinking  has  dissected  the  original  experience. 
This  synthesis  may  be  achieved  by  a  speculative 
insight  which,  although  rational,  will  transcend 
the  methods  and  results  of  analytical  reasoning. 
For  such  an  insight  the  reality  of  things  will  be 
not  an  abstract  identity  of  laws  and  principles  in 
which  the  individual  and  his  unique  experience 
have  no  place,  but  a  unity  in  diversity.  The  method 
of  analysis  brought  us  face  to  face  with  the  ap¬ 
parently  insoluble  contradictions — of  a  time-world 
and  a  timeless  Absolute — of  a  progress  in  finite  in- 


THE  TIME-PROCESS 


167 


dividuals  and  an  unchanging  Absolute  Individual 
as  the  ground  of  this  progress.  We  are  not  able 
by  the  method  of  analysis  alone  to  get  light  on  this 
problem.  Discursive  thinking,  after  having  ana¬ 
lyzed  and  presented  our  problem,  clearly  points 
the  way  beyond  itself  to  the  solution.  For  if  we 
return  to  our  first  starting-point  we  find  that  the 
living  experience,  which  discursive  thinking  has 
analyzed,  exhibits  in  the  very  presentation  of 
thought’s  material  a  clue  to  the  overcoming  of  the 
antinomies  which  thought  has  developed  in  the 
process  of  analysis. 

Discursive  thinking  must  push  its  inquiries  into 
reality,  even  to  the  length  of  questioning  whether 
it  is  in  itself  capable  of  fully  comprehending  and 
expressing  reality.  Perhaps  thinking  is  only  dis¬ 
covering  its  true  place  when  it  recognizes  that,  as 
it  cannot  by  itself  make  reality,  so  it  cannot  wholly 
grasp  the  reality  in  human  experience.  Thought, 
as  analytical,  always  involves  an  other  than  itself, 
on  which  it  works.  When  we  have  admitted  the 
presence  of  thought’s  activity  in  the  constitution 
of  our  experience  and,  by  analysis,  have  traced  its 
activity  down  into  the  very  elements  of  perception, 
there  still  remains  in  the  presentation  of  the  ma¬ 
terial  of  experience  in  the  mind  a  factor  not  reduci¬ 
ble  to  the  forms  of  analytical  thinking.  The  crudest 
elements  of  sense-experience  are  already  present  as 
synthetic  wholes  in  relation  to  the  feeling  of  the 
unity  of  the  self.  Thought  does  not  make  the  first 


1 68  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


synthesis  of  experience.  And  it  does  not  create, 
as  it  cannot  abolish,  the  distinction  and  the  unity  of 
subject  and  object,  of  experiencing  consciousness 
and  that  which  is  experienced.  Both  the  dis¬ 
tinction  and  the  unity  are  implicitly  given  to 
thought  in  an  immediate  experience  which  goes 
below  analytical  thinking,  and  the  opposition 
of  subject  and  object  can  be  overcome  at  a 
higher  level  by  an  immediate  experience  which 
goes  beyond  thinking.  Thought,  then,  does  not 
create  its  “  other  1'  The  latter  is  given  in  expe¬ 
rience,  and  when  thought  discovers  its  depend¬ 
ence  on  the  “other"  it  discovers  further  that  in 
order  to  be  completely  one  with  its  “  other  ”  it  must 
transcend  itself  and  be  taken  up  into  a  higher 
unity.  The  latter  shall  be,  by  reason  of  thought’s 
activity,  the  clearer  expression  of  that  immediate 
unity  of  experience  from  which  thought  started 
out.  When  thought  embraces  its  “  other  ”  it 
ceases  to  be  any  longer  itself.  By  showing  the 
presence  in  nature  and  in  life  of  apparently  oppos¬ 
ing  powers  and  contradictory  principles,  analytical 
thinking  reveals  the  riches  and  the  depth  of  the 
real  world  which  it  lights  up.  But  Thought  is 
not  in  itself  Reality.  It  is  only  a  limited  aspect 
of  Reality.  Feeling which  gives  the  impulse  to 

1  I  apply  the  term  Feeling,  ( a )  in  a  narrower  sense  to  those 
primitive  conscious  states  which  have  directly  conative  tendencies, 
(b)  in  a  wider  sense  to  all  immediate  phases  of  consciousness  in 
contrast  to  reflective  thinking. 


THE  TIME-PROCESS 


169 


Conation,  and  Emotion ,  which  leads  the  self  to 
strive  until  the  harmony  of  feeling,  from  the  dis¬ 
turbance  of  which  conation  originates,  is  restored 
— these  reveal  more  fully  the  reality  in  human 
experience,  which  discursive  thinking  can  analyze 
and  point  out,  but  can  never  be.  Impelled  by 
Feeling,  Thinking  begins  with  the  reality  as  im¬ 
mediate  experience.  This  experience  Thinking 
analyzes  in  order  that  conation  may  bring  to  pass 
the  higher  harmony  of  feeling.  And  the  latter, 
after  the  work  of  thought  has  been  done,  is  no 
longer  mere  blind  feeling,  but  feeling  illuminated 
and  refined  by  thought  and  stamped  with  a 
fixity  of  character  by  its  own  repeated  expression 
in  action.  Feeling  has  become  an  organized 
and  permanent  emotional  disposition  or  Sen¬ 
timent. 

A  key  to  the  nature  of  the  Absolute  Being  as 
he  is  for  us  has  been  found  in  the  nature  of  the 
finite  individual  regarded  as  a  unity  of  conscious¬ 
ness,  in  which  feeling  and  its  volitional  expression 
are  fundamental,  and  discursive  thinking  is  the 
organ  for  their  definition  and  realization.  I  must 
still  inquire  if  the  finite  self  offers  any  further  em¬ 
pirical  verification  and  positive  determination  of 
the  nature  of  the  Absolute  as  I  have  indicated  it 
to  be. 


I  JO  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


4.  Further  Positive  Determination  of  the  Absolute 
in  Relation  to  Man —  The  A  bsolute  is  the  Im¬ 
mediately  Experienced  Unity  of  Will  and 
Thought. 

Finite  individuals  can  exist  only  as  organic  mem¬ 
bers  of  a  system  which  has  a  central  unity.  This 
unity  is  the  Absolute  Individual.  Can  we  say 
more  concerning  its  nature  ? 

It  must  be  a  unity  which  preserves  its  identity 
amidst  differences,  its  perfection  amidst  change. 
It  must  be  a  unity  which  pervades  all  the  apparent 
contradictions  of  the  actual  world  and  yet  re¬ 
mains  at  one.  with  itself.  It  must  be  spiritual  in 
its  essential  nature.  For  the  end  of  the  develop¬ 
ment  which  it  originates  and  directs — the  goal  of 
the  world-process — is  the  realization  of  the  sys¬ 
tem  of  finite  spirits.  When  we  look  in  experi¬ 
ence  for  suggestions  as  to  the  nature  of  such  a 
unity  we  find  it  in  the  life  of  the  self.  The  finite 
self  at  its  highest  power  is  a  unity  which  embraces 
concrete  differences  and  undergoes  change,  and 
yet  maintains  itself  in  an  unbroken  and  continu¬ 
ous  self-feeling.  The  self  preserves  itself,  from 
day  to  day,  amidst  the  struggles  and  contradic¬ 
tions  that  threaten  to  rend  it  in  twain,  and  at 
moments  in  the  pauses  of  the  struggles  it  gets 
glimpses  of  a  harmony  in  which  the  differences 
are  healed  and  the  struggles  have  ceased.  Rather, 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


171 


may  we  not  say  that  the  self,  when  it  takes  stock 
of  itself  as  a  whole,  realizes  that  its  true  life  is  lived 
in  the  apparent  contradictions  and  discordances 
that  seem  to  seek  its  death  ? 

Again,  if  the  Absolute  is  a  unity  he  must  be  a 
self-consciousness.  For  the  partial  unity  of  the 
real  in  our  experience  exists  for  us  only  as  present 
to  our  consciousness.  Therefore  the  total  Reality 
can  be  one  experience  ( i.e .,  can  hold  together)  only 
if  the  unity  of  experience  exists  immediately  in 
the  Absolute.  And  this  unity  of  experience  has 
no  meaning  unless  the  Absolute  is  a  single  self 
consciousness. 

The  self-conscious  Absolute  is  God  as  philoso¬ 
phy  conceives  him  in  relation  to  us.  But  the  ex¬ 
perience  of  the  Divine  Self  in  comprehending  the 
contents  of  this  consciousness  cannot,  for  reasons 
already  given,  be  adequately  conceived  after  the 
analogy  of  human  thought  in  its  analytic  and 
discursive  activity.  The  Divine  Self  is  best  figured 
as  an  intuitive  Intelligence  which  penetrates  and 
illuminates  the  entire  system  of  finite  individuals. 
He  may  be  pictured  as  a  centre  or  fountain  of 
light  the  rays  of  which  irradiate  the  (to  it)  trans¬ 
lucent  particulars  of  the  universe.  God  is  a  self- 
experience  conscious  of  itself  in  and  through  the 
finite  centres  of  experience  which  are  its  contents. 
This  self-experience  as  a  single  consciousness  is, 
for  us,  an  intuition. 

God  is  better  described  as  self -intuitive  than  as 


i;2  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


simply  self-conscious.  The  latter  term  implies  a 
division  between  the  self  and  the  contents  of  its 
experience,  a  contrast  between  the  self  and  what 
it  thinks  as  external  to  itself.  The  self  is  thrown 
back  upon  itself  from  its  effort  to  comprehend  the 
not-self.  In  God  there  can  be  no  such  division 
between  form  and  content,  self  and  not-self.  By 
describing  God  as  the  absolute  self-intuition  or 
self-experience  we  mean  that  he  is  the  central  con¬ 
scious  unity  which  experiences  all  aspects  of  ex¬ 
istence  as  its  content.  God  is  a  Spiritual  Indi¬ 
viduality. ,  a  Personality  infinitely  more  clear  to 
himself  than  my  own  self-consciousness  is  to  me. 

The  finite  self,  considered  in  the  unity  of  its 
life,  gives  us  the  clearest  intimation  we  can  find 
of  how  a  complexity  of  contents,  a  multiplicity 
of  concrete  difference,  i.e.,  of  individual  existences, 
can  be  held  together  as  an  individual  system.  But 
since  the  jarring  details  are  perhaps  never  wholly 
harmonized  in  the  finite  self-experience,  so  we  may 
not  be  able  to  understand  fully  and  in  detail  just 
how  the  apparent  contradictions  in  the  totality  of 
experience  (eg,  good  and  evil)  fit  harmoniously 
into  a  single  world-meaning.  Nevertheless  in  the 
immediacy  and  unity  of  our  self  feeling  we  have 
direct  experience  of  a  unity  that  maintains  itself 
successfully  amidst  the  diversity  that  it  embraces. 
The  self  preserves  its  being  amidst  the  almost  over¬ 
mastering  impulses,  the  aching  desires,  the  unreal¬ 
ized  ideals  that  threaten  it  with  anarchy  but  really 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


173 

contribute  to  its  life.  That  the  finite  self  is  never 
completely  object  to  itself,  and  hence  never  wholly 
present  in  immediate  experience,  is  not  a  valid 
objection  to  taking  it  as  indicative  of  the  nature 
of  the  Absolute.  The  Real  must  of  course  tran¬ 
scend  the  immediate  passing  experience.  It  can 
never  be  envisaged  as  a  specific  psychological  con¬ 
tent.  What  we  seek  is  the  necessary  implicate  of 
our  finite  experience.  The  empirical  finite  self 
does  itself  transcend  its  fleeting  experiences.  In 
many  of  its  passing  states  the  self  is  not  aware  of  its 
own  unity.  But  its  very  ability  to  note  these  states, 
to  recall  them,  and  to  recognize  its  own  immersion 
in  its  momentary  experiences  depends  on  the  un¬ 
failing  presence  of  the  unity  of  consciousness,  even 
when  the  self  is  least  aware  of  itself.  The  basis 
of  the  notion  of  self  is  the  immediate  self-feeling 
which  is  always  present  in  cognition  and  conation, 
although  it  may  not  appear  with  distinctness  in 
consciousness,  since  the  self  may  be  for  the  moment 
immersed  in  the  particulars  of  its  own  passing 
states.  Knowledge  and  action  both  spring  from 
this  unity  of  feeling  or  immediate  consciousness, 
and  in  their  attainment  they  return  to  enhance  it, 
to  make  richer  the  immediate  life  of  the  self,  which 
is  felt  as  a  single  pulse. 

It  may  be  asked  whether  the  world  as  the  content 
of  the  Divine  Self-consciousness  contains  anything 
but  selves,  i.e.t  possesses  elements  which  are  not 
individuals.  In  a  previous  section  I  reached  the 


1 74  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


conclusion  that  all  that  is  real  must  in  some  way 
minister  to  the  life  of  spirits  either  as  stimulus  to 
their  development  or  organs  of  their  expression. 
But  to  be  a  spirit  is  to  be  an  individual  or  self. 
Anything  that  could  not  be  defined  in  relation  to 
spirits  would  be  cut  off  either  from  the  fragmentary 
unity  of  experience  in  the  finite  self  or  from  the 
absolute  unity  of  experience.  Such  a  thing  would 
be  a  u  Ding-an-sich”  an  “  unknowable.” 

From  this  point  of  view,  what  we  call  inorganic 
nature  can  be  so  designated  only  because  of  the 
narrowness  of  our  vision.  It  must  be  either  the 
embodiment  of  certain,  to  us  unknown,  forms  of 
finite  self-hood  or  (but  less  likely)  the  direct 
embodiment  of  the  Absolute  by  which  he  enters 
into  relation  to  finite  spirits,  and  stimulates,  guides, 
and  furthers,  as  well  as  limits,  the  development  of 
finite  selves.  The  two  hypotheses  are  not  mu¬ 
tually  exclusive.  In  any  case,  so-called  inorganic 
nature  is  organic  to  the  activity  of  spirits ;  it  is  a 
medium  of  intercourse  between  human  selves  and 
the  Absolute.  Some  such  explanation  would  also 
be  valid  for  the  lower  forms  of  organic  life.  But 
the  further  development  of  the  idea  belongs  to  the 
Philosophy  of  Nature.1 

I  have  constantly  spoken  of  God  as  the  all- 

1  Perhaps  the  most  important  and  the  most  difficult  question  in 
this  connection  would  be  to  determine  the  nature  and  kinds  of 
imperfect  {i. e. ,  not  self-conscious)  individuals ,  their  degrees  of 
permanency  and  the  reasons  for  their  existence. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


175 


embracing  self-consciousness,  the  Infinite  Individ¬ 
ual  who  unifies  and  sustains  the  system  of  finite 
individuals.  But  an  individual  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
not  a  mere  thought.  Its  thought  serves  its  cona¬ 
tion,  and  the  goal  of  its  conation  is  a  harmony  of 
feeling,  a  perfect  unity  of  experience.  Therefore 
the  Absolute  Individual,  regarded  as  the  source  of 
the  conative  activity  of  finite  selves,  must  be  zvill. 
What,  then,  is  the  relation  of  the  finite  wills  to  the 
Universal  Will — to  God’s  will?  We  cannot  logi¬ 
cally  speak  of  God  as  the  Absolute  Will  before 
whom  the  finite  is  as  nothing.  This  mode  of 
speech  excludes  the  Absolute  Will  and  the  human 
will  from  any  positive  relationship.  It  then  be¬ 
comes  impossible  to  define  the  Absolute  in  any 
terms,  since  we  have  no  connecting  point  in  finite 
experience.  By  this  method  of  thought  when 
the  Absolute  is  present  all  human  attributes  are 
absent,  and,  vice  versa,  when  the  idea  of  man  is 
present  that  of  the  Absolute  is  absent.  Hence 
God  becomes  a  blind,  unknown  Force.  We  have 
Mr.  Spencer’s  doctrine  reached  by  a  shorter  road. 
It  is  true  that  in  religious  feeling  God  is  often 
regarded  as  the  Infinite  and  Holy  Will  without 
the  significance  of  these  terms  being  defined.  In¬ 
deed,  at  the  moment  of  devotion  definition  would 
be  fatal. 

But,  from  our  present  point  of  view,  the  defini¬ 
tion  of  God  as  the  Absolute,  comprehending  all 
power  within  himself,  must  not  and  does  not  an- 


i;6  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


nihilate  the  will  of  the  finite  individual.  For  the 
relation  between  them  is  that  of  the  Infinite  Spirit 
to  its  specific,  unique  self-conscious  organs  and 
manifestations.  Neither  exists  without  the  other. 
The  religious  man  who  feels  his  own  dependence 
on  God  does  not  even  in  the  depths  of  this  feel¬ 
ing  lose  himself  completely  in  God.  The  feeling 
of  dependence  and  the  sense  of  self-hood  are  the 
two  complementary  aspects  of  the  religious  union 
of  the  finite  and  the  infinite.  The  religious  man 
knows  that  communion  with  God  demands  a  har¬ 
monious  relationship  with  the  Divine  Life,  not  a 
sinking  of  self  in  an  infinite  ocean  of  being.  The 
true  and  ethical  relation  of  the  absolute  and  the 
finite  wills  is  one  of  unity  in  diversity,  not  one  of 
abstract  identity.  The  attempt  to  proclaim  in  the 
same  breath  the  abstract  dynamic  absoluteness  of 
God  and  the  ethical  reality  of  the  human  will  is 
foredoomed  to  failure.  Am  I  free  to  determine 
my  actions  through  my  own  will?  If  I  am  so 
free,  then  God,  conceived  as  a  Being  over  against 
and  excluding  me,  is  not  absolute.  The  freedom 
of  man1  is  bound  up  with  his  character  as  ethical. 
Without  the  power  of  self-determination  man 
becomes  a  mere  thing,  a  blind  tool.  The  Divine 
Being  can  have  positive  meaning  for  us  only  in  so 
far  as  he  stands  towards  us  in  ethical  relations. 

1  The  freedom  insisted  on  here  is  not  that  of  absolute  indif¬ 
ference  or  pure  indeterminism,  but  of  the  self-expression  of  the 
unique,  individual  spirit. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


1 77 

In  the  creation  of  man,  God  imposes  upon  him¬ 
self  a  self-limitation  or  individualization  of  power 
which  is  at  the  same  time  a  self-realization  of  love 
and  the  expression  of  his  innermost  nature. 

If  man’s  power  of  self-determination  were  sud¬ 
denly  taken  away  it  would  no  longer  be  possible 
to  define  the  Absolute  in  ethical  or  spiritual  terms. 
The  nothingness  of  man  would  involve  the  ethical 
nothingness  of  God.  It  follows  that  God  as  he  is 
represented  by  the  ideas  which  are  commonly  used 
to  express  popular  religious  thought  is  not  the 
Absolute  of  philosophy.  In  the  mystical  form  of 
devotion  the  two  ideas  approximate  more  closely. 
Popular  religious  thought  tends  to  conceive  God 
as  a  being  outside  0/and  over  against  man.  Deeper 
religious  experience  recognizes  the  being  of  God 
in  man.  The  philosophical  Absolute  is  the  God 
of  popular  religion  together  with  finite  spirits  con¬ 
ceived  as  the  members  of  a  harmonious  system. 

Individual  finite  wills  are  relatively  independent 
centres  of  action.  This  is  matter  of  experience, 
and,  moreover,  to  deny  the  relative  reality  of  the 
individual  will  is  to  saw  off  the  branch  which  sup¬ 
ports  us  while  we  philosophize.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  world-will  is  God’s  will,  as  it  creates  and 
directs  the  course  of  our  world,  and  as  it  unites 
itself  with  man’s  will.  The  Absolute  Will  is  the 
comprehensive  unitary  will  which  sustains  all  the 
finite  centres  of  will  in  their  interaction  and  directs 
their  efforts  towards  the  realization  of  a  single 


12 


178  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


world-meaning  or  Telos.  The  finite  individual  ful¬ 
fils  his  destiny  by  recognizing  and  exercising  his 
unique  function  in  the  movement  of  the  world-life. 
If  an  individual  absolutely  refuses  to  so  recognizee 
his  function  he  may  ipso  facto  forfeit  his  individ¬ 
uality.  His  will  may  perish.  This  is  a  possibility. 

This  view  of  the  relation  of  the  finite  will  and 
the  Absolute  will  does  not,  as  might  be  thought, 
divorce  the  true  religious  and  the  metaphysical 
conceptions  of  God.  Man  knows  himself  as  a  free 
or  self-determining  being  in  order  that  he  may 
consciously  unite  his  will  with  the  will  of  God.  In 
so  doing  he  submits  himself  to  his  own  highest 
will.  Religion  completes  itself  in  the  vision  of 
the  Absolute  Will,  which  forever  finds  its  fruition 
by  expressing  itself  through  and  in  finite  spirits. 
The  Divine  Self  fulfils  its  own  life  through  “  finite 
centres  of  experience,”  which  in  turn  realize  them¬ 
selves  through  oneness  with  the  Divine  Self.  This 
oneness,  this  communion  of  the  finite  and  the  Di¬ 
vine,  is  the  self-expression  and  self-fulfilment  of 
the  Absolute  Life.1 

An  objection  may  be  raised  to  describing  the 
Absolute  as  Will.  Will,  it  is  said,  manifests  itself 
in  activity,  and  activity  is  always  finite.  It  is  a 
mere  appearance.  It  is  urged  that  all  perception 
of  activity  arises  from  the  expansion  of  the  self 
against  the  not-self,  and  that  therefore  our  notion 

1  The  unity  in  difference  of  the  finite  and  the  absolute  selves 
forms  the  groundwork  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


179 


of  activity  must  be  always  finite.  For  activity  can 
be  known,  and  can  therefore  exist  only  as  aroused 
through  conflict  with  external  objects.  Now,  of 
course,  activity  in  this  sense  cannot  be  predicated 
of  the  ultimate  Reality,  inasmuch  as  there  can  be 
nothing  beyond  the  Absolute  to  occasion  his  activ¬ 
ity,  and  if  there  were  something  beyond,  he  would 
cease  to  be  absolute.  But  this  objection  is  not 
fatal  to  the  ascription  of  activity  to  the  Absolute. 
Naturally,  we  should  expect  the  activity  of  the 
finite  will  to  appear  as  limited  and  conditioned 
from  without.  The  finite  self,  by  virtue  of  its  fini- 
tude,  implies  more  than  itself.  Nevertheless,  in 
its  action  as  well  as  in  its  thought  it  constantly 
returns  into  itself  from  its  dependence  on  things 
external.  Moreover,  from  the  beginning,  its  most 
characteristic  action  goes  out  from  itself,  i.e.,  is 
not  externally  generated.  The  individual  life  be¬ 
gins  as  the  expression  of  an  inter  7ial  impulse.  We 
have  constant  experience  in  our  own  lives  of  an 
inner  striving,  an  impulse  towards  self-realization, 
which  is  wholly  self-generated  and  arises  from  the 
struggle  of  desires  within  the  self,  although  the 
details  of  its  satisfaction  depend  on  the  not-self  or 
external  world.  The  will-to-live,  the  basic  and  in¬ 
dividual  impulse  towards  self-realization,  is,  in  all 
its  forms  of  manifestation,  this  striving  which 
originates  from  within.  In  the  ethical  form  of  the 
will-to-live  the  inner  conflict  of  desires,  as  well  as 
the  conflict  of  the  will  with  other  wills,  is  continu- 


l8o  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


ously  being  overcome.  Indeed,  so  far  is  the  feel¬ 
ing  of  activity  from  being  a  specific  result  of 
specific  opposition  from  without  that  it  accom¬ 
panies  the  entire  conscious  life  of  the  finite  self. 
It  is  not  a  specific  experience  which  can  be  defi¬ 
nitely  placed  at  a  single  point  within  experience, 
precisely  in  the  same  way  that  the  entire  unity  of 
self-feeling  is  not  a  specific  experience  or  separable 
part  of  self-consciousness.  The  feeling  of  activity 
is  one  aspect  of  the  entire  unity  of  consciousness. 
One  who  says  he  cannot  see  it  is  in  the  position 
of  the  observer  who  cannot  see  the  woods  for  the 
trees.  By  activity  I  mean  the  sense  of  a  progres¬ 
sive  expansion  of  life.  We  find  no  trace  of  a  spe¬ 
cific  sense  of  effort  as  one  irreducible  element  in 
conscious  experience.  The  truth  is  that  what  is 
popularly  called  will  is  not  a  primitive  element  of 
consciousness.  All  psychic  life  tends  to  express 
itself,  i.e.,  is  conative ,  and  our  so-called  will  is  de¬ 
rived  from  the  original  feeling-impulses  of  our 
nature  as  these  are  inhibited,  modified,  directed, 
and  harmonized  under  the  influence  of  thought* 
The  original  basis  of  volition,  then,  lies  in  the  cona¬ 
tive  character  of  primitive  feelings,  and  its  develop¬ 
ment  is  determined  by  the  interaction  of  feeling- 
impulse  and  thought.  These  are  the  original  as¬ 
pects  of  finite  consciousness.  The  word  “  will  ” 
gets  its  significance  from  ethics.  It  is  the  latest 
and  highest  phase  of  self-activity.  Will  is  the 
final  form  of  conation  or  feeling-impulse.  The 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


1 8 1 


final  form  gives  significance  to  the  whole  devel¬ 
opment. 

It  is  true  that  the  finite  character  of  ourselves 
makes  us  dependent  on  the  cooperation  of  the 
not-self  for  the  realization  of  our  ends.  But  the 
truth  or  value  of  our  activity  lies  in  its  purpose 
or  meaning.  Activities  and  achievements  as  well 
as  all  extra-personal  facts  and  events  get  their 
final  meanings  for  us  from  their  relations  to  the 
realization  of  our  purposes,  the  attainment  of  our 
ends.  It  is  true  that  the  fulfilment  of  a  purpose 
in  a  series  of  successive  events  is  a  process  in 
time.  It  is  also  true  that  the  objectification  or 
successful  realization  of  our  ends  is  dependent  on 
the  establishment  of  a  harmony  between  the  self 
and  the  not-self.  But  even  where  our  end,  as  at 
first  conceived,  seems  not  to  be  attained  in  time 
it  is  frequently  attained  in  a  new  and  more  sig¬ 
nificant  sense  than  we  had  intended.  And  in  any 
case  the  meaning  of  the  process  of  realization  for 
self  consists  in  its  felt  value.  The  end  is  itself  con¬ 
ceived  without  reference  to  time,  and  in  its  attain¬ 
ment  the  self  reposes  without  any  sense  of  tem¬ 
poral  lapse.  In  the  presence  and  enjoyment  of 
the  realized  end  the  conflict  between  self  and  not- 
sel»f  has  been  absorbed,  and  therefore  the  sense  of 
strain,  which  was  produced  by  the  obstruction  of 
the  purposeful  striving  (conation),  and  which  in 
turn  produced  the  sense  of  the  time-interval  in 
its  length  and  its  feeling-tone,  has  vanished.  If  a 


1 82  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


perfect  harmony  were  established  between  the 
self  and  the  not-self  the  lapse  of  time  either  as 
tiresome  ( langweilig ),  or  pleasant  ( kurzweilig ), 
would  no  longer  have  any  meaning  for  us.  For 
it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  in  proportion  as  our 
activity  is  unobstructed  and  full  of  unwaning  in¬ 
terest  our  experience  is  pleasurable  and  the  sense 
of  time  is  absent.  We  become  absorbed  in  our  ac¬ 
tivity,  and  the  flow  of  time  is  not  observed.  If, 
then,  the  flow  of  activity  were  wholly  uninterrupted 
and  harmonious,  is  it  not  conceivable  that  we  should 
still  possess  the  agreeable  experience  of  our  ac¬ 
tivity  as  a  harmonious  element  in  the  One  Infinite 
Life?  Now,  God,  if  he  be  conceived  as  the  Ab¬ 
solute  Spirit,  is  the  self-contained  Activity  or  Life 
of  the  universe.  Therefore,  since  he  is  at  every 
instant  active  to  the  fullest  degree  possible,  his 
purpose,  which  forever  expresses  his  activity  in 
the  life  of  the  endless  series  of  finite  individuals, 
is  forever  satisfied.  The  goal  of  attainment,  which, 
for  each  one  of  us,  as  a  very  limited  factor  in  the 
whole,  is  future ,  is  for  him  eternally  present . 
What  we  feel  as  future  attainment  is  for  him  pres¬ 
ent  blessedness. 

Our  finite  experience  is  a  partial  appearance 
of  that  which  is  ultimately  Real.  The  living  Ab¬ 
solute  manifests  himself  in  every  finite  experience. 
Every  form  of  appearance  expresses  the  ultimate 
Reality  in  some  degree  or  manner,  and  is  so  far 
real.  Truth  has  degrees,  and  error  somehow  be- 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


183 


longs  to  the  Real.  What  appears  to  us  as  error 
has,  in  its  relation  to  the  Absolute,  a  truth,  and 
constitutes  part  of  the  final  world-meaning. 

There  are  likewise  degrees  of  goodness.  Evil 
transformed  has  a  place  in  the  final  world-mean¬ 
ing.  It  is  not  for  the  Absolute  as  it  appears  to 
us.  It  is  impossible  here  to  discuss  at  length  the 
place  of  evil  in  the  world-meaning.  Similar  ar¬ 
guments  would  apply  to  its  relation  to  the  Abso¬ 
lute  as  were  indicated  in  the  discussion  of  the 
time-process.  The  possibility  of  evil  is  the  means 
to  the  realization  of  righteousness  in  man.  This 
could  not  be  otherwise,  since  man  is  finite  and 
involved  in  change.  But  the  good,  when  seen 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  timeless,  living  Abso¬ 
lute,  is  now  actually  realized.  In  God’s  insight 
what  is  in  man  an  evil  impulse  becomes  trans¬ 
formed  into  an  element  in  the  good  will  which 
has  membership  in  the  absolute  system  of  wills. 
In  so  doing  it  loses  its  evil  character.  Evil,  viewed 
as  a  totality  in  relation  to  the  entire  system  of 
reality,  has  just  the  same  position  as  the  evil  im¬ 
pulse  in  the  good  man,  which,  although  an  immi¬ 
nent  possibility  of  actual  evil,  in  not  becoming 
actualized  forms  an  element  in  his  realization  of 
goodness.  But  it  may  be  said  evil  is  actually 
realized  in  the  world.  How  do  we  explain  its 
presence  ?  It  is  sometimes  more  than  an  illusion 
or  a  bare  possibility.  Why  and  how  is  it  in  such 
cases  a  means  to  the  good?  Well,  if  there  are  to 


1 84  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


be  finite  wills,  if  the  Absolute  cannot  express  him¬ 
self  otherwise  than  in  the  generation  of  an  endless 
series  of  individual  and  limited  centres  of  action, 
then,  unless  this  whole  process  is  a  farce,  the  indi¬ 
vidual  will  must  possess  a  real  possibility  of  act¬ 
ing  out  of  harmony  with  the  system  of  reality. 
Actual  evil,  then,  is  the  positive  disharmony  of  the 
finite  centres  of  will  with  other  finite  centres,  and 
therefore  with  the  Absolute  Will  of  God.  He  is 
conscious  of  this  disharmony,  but  conscious  also 
of  its  subordination  to  his  own  world-meaning, 
and  its  impotence  to  wreck  the  absolute  purpose 
which  is  eternally  realized.  The  finite  individual 
is  free  to  hold  himself  aloof  from  God  and  his 
fellows.  He  is  free  to  choose  evil.  But  in  per¬ 
sistently  so  doing  he  annihilates  himself.  For 
his  aloofness  is  not  ultimate  but  self-destructive. 

The  Absolute  Reality  is  a  self ,  which  embraces 
and  sustains  all  finite  centres  of  experience  in  its 
concrete  unity.  It  is  spiritual ,  for  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  spiritual  is  the  meaning  of  the  histori¬ 
cal  process  of  human  experience.  All  the  contra¬ 
dictions  and  discordances  of  life  exist  as  means 
for  the  development  of  individual  spirits,  and  are 
already  overcome  in  the  growth  of  the  natural 
individual  into  full  personality.  Each  person  is  a 
unique  manifestation  of  the  Absolute  Reality. 
The  highest  value  we  can  find  in  the  world  of  ex¬ 
perience,  and  the  only  final  and  comprehensive 
value  in  this  world,  is  expressed  in  the  self-con- 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


185 


scious  life  of  spirits.  If  we  cannot  postulate  the 
life  of  finite  conscious  spirits  as  in  essential  har¬ 
mony  with  the  purpose  of  the  cosmos,  and  as  ex¬ 
pressing,  however  imperfectly,  the  nature  of  the 
Absolute,  then  we  know  nothing  about  the  latter  ; 
then  our  knowledge  has  no  goal ;  the  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  the  world-process  in  any  terms  that  spring 
from  human  thought  has  no  real  and  final  mean¬ 
ing  ;  then  our  social  morality  and  our  individual 
strivings  towards  the  good  have  no  more  signifi¬ 
cance  in  the  universe  than  the  fluttering  of  a  leaf 
in  the  autumn  stillness  ;  then  our  ideals  of  beauty 
and  perfection  are  but  dreams  that  have  not  even 
a  rational  cause.  For  to  find  the  latter  would  be 
to  assume  that  the  universe  is  rational. 

Our  lives  may  not  have  quite  the  relations  to 
the  whole  of  reality  that  they  seem  to  us  to  have. 
We  may  not  be  able  to  apprehend  with  perfect 
clearness  the  whole  process  of  cosmical  develop¬ 
ment.  But  if  we  are  not  to  be  put  to  permanent 
intellectual  and  moral  confusion  we  must  believe 
that  man  is  not  homeless  in  the  universe,  that  his 
spiritual  development  has  value  for  the  whole 
system  of  reality.  Reality  is  not  pure  thought  or 
abstract  reason.  But  it  must  be  rational,  and 
as  rational  it  must  be  spiritual — the  perfect  unity 
of  experience. 

Experience  in  us  begins  in  feeling,  traverses 
the  long  road  of  alternate  self-estrangement  and 
return-to-self  in  thought  and  volition,  and  attains 


1 86  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


to  unity  with  itself  in  those  moments  when  it  af¬ 
fords  glimpses  of  that  higher  unity  in  which  the 
skeleton  of  thought  is,  by  the  fulfilment  of  our 
purposes,  clothed  once  more  with  the  living  and 
now  spiritual  whole  of  emotion  and  sentiment,  and 
goodness  and  beauty  become  concrete  experiences. 
The  values  of  life  are  always  experienced  as  im¬ 
mediate  feelings. 

The  Absolute  is  a  living  self.  What  a  spirit 
that  did  energize  and  was  not  in  any  sense  an  active 
experience  could  mean  the  present  writer  is  unable 
to  conceive.  God  is  the  One  Ultimate  Spirit,  the 
Absolute  Person.  He  is  at  once  the  concrete 
unity  of  individual  finite  spirits  and  the  Infinite 
Spirit,  reposing  in  himself.  He  is  conscious  of 
himself  as  living  in  and  through  finite  spirits. 
These,  again,  have  achieved  the  purpose  of  their 
being  when  they  can  feel  and  progressively  realize 
their  unity  with  the  Absolute  Spirit.  In  the  one¬ 
ness  of  his  consciousness  God  knows,  or  rather  is, 
the  world-meaning.  What  we  call  feeling  and 
thinking  must  coalesce  in  him  into  a  sun-clear  in¬ 
tuition  of  his  self  and  of  the  universe  as  the  mani¬ 
festation  of  himself.  This  intuition  penetrates 
with  its  clear  light  to  the  inmost  recesses  of  being. 
As  the  untroubled,  transparent,  perfect  conscious¬ 
ness,  as  the  undisturbed  unity  of  experience,  God 
is  active  and  feels  his  own  activity.  But  since  in 
this  activity  there  is  neither  partial  cessation  nor 
any  temporal  variation  there  can  be  in  God  no 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


l87 


sense  of  unattained  striving.  At  the  same  time 
he  must  know  and  feel  the  strivings  of  his  crea¬ 
tures.  But  since  he  knows  what  the  striving 
creature  does  not  know  as  immediately  certain, 
viz.,  the  outcome  of  the  strivings,  the  unity  and 
the  harmony  of  the  Absolute  Experience  is  not 
marred  by  doubt  or  weariness. 

We  have  reached  a  conclusion  to  which  mere 
abstract  or  discursive  thinking  would  never  have 
led  us  and  with  which  it  may  quarrel.  But  as  we 
have  moved  further  away  from  discursive  thought, 
impelled  by  thought’s  own  needs,  we  have  ap¬ 
proached  nearer  to  the  total  experience  of  life. 
We  have  emphasized  what  intellectualism  tends 
to  neglect,  viz.,  that  emotion  and  will,  not  indeed 
divorced  from  but  using  and  reaching  beyond 
mere  thought,  give  us  deeper  hints  of  the  nature 
of  the  Absolute.  For  thought  is  the  handmaid  of 
the  primal  feeling-impulses  of  our  nature. 

It  is  the  fullest  life  lived  on  earth  that  contains 
in  itself  the  most  possibilities  of  contradiction, 
the  deepest  experiences  of  jars  and  discords.  The 
wider  experience,  the  deeper  insight  discovers  that 
reality  is  too  rich  to  be  a  bare  identity  and  too 
complex  to  be  capable  of  expression  in  terms  of 
abstract  thought. 

The  impulse  to  action,  whether  of  thought  or 
of  body,  comes  from  feeling.  Will,  in  its  devel¬ 
oped  form,  is  the  resultant  of  thought’s  direction 
of  the  primal  feeling-impulses  (conative  tenden- 


1 88  MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


cies)  of  the  self.  The  goal  of  conduct  is,  after  all, 
the  same  goal  which  speculative  thought  seeks, 
viz.,  the  attainment  of  a  perfect  harmony  or  feel¬ 
ing-unity  in  experience,  and  this  comes  from  the 
unimpeded  exercise  of  our  active  tendencies  from 
the  satisfaction  of  our  desires.  The  reality  outside 
the  individual  self  is  known  by  the  immediately 
felt  contrast  between  the  ego  and  the  external 
world,  of  which  contrast  sense-impressions  are  the 
signs.  The  feeling  of  the  contrast  between  subject 
and  object  initiates  activities  both  of  body  and 
mind  which  we  commonly  designate  respectively 
as  action  and  thought.  The  end  of  the  activity 
in  both  cases  is  the  removal  of  a  felt  discordance 
and  the  establishment  on  a  higher  plane  of  a  felt 
harmony.  The  dialectic  process  of  pure  thought 
is  no  more  an  end  in  itself  than  the  volitional 
processes  of  our  active  bodily  life.  The  dialectic 
of  thought  springs  from  the  felt  needs  of  a  devel¬ 
oping  self. 

Through  feeling  we  get  our  first  dim  sense  of 
being.  Through  feeling  we  become  conscious  of 
divisions,  discordances  in  being.  Through  feeling 
our  muscles  and  our  thoughts  are  stirred  into 
action  to  remove  these  discordances.  And  the 
end  is  that  the  immediate  feeling-unity  of  the  self 
shall,  through  the  activity  of  thought  (to  which  of 
course  bodily  activity  is  supplemental),  through 
the  dialectic  of  life  and  thought,  rise  to  a  more 
comprehensive,  to  a  spiritual  unity.  This  higher 


THE  ABSOLUTE  SELF 


189 


unity  shall  be  no  longer  blind,  as  elemental  feel¬ 
ing  is,  but  rendered  articulate  and  self-compre¬ 
hending  through  the  activity  of  thought.  Discur¬ 
sive  Thought  is  not  reality.  For  it  does  not  make 
its  material,  and  it  is  not  its  own  result.  In  the 
unity  of  the  Absolute  Purpose  it  is  transcended. 

To  paraphrase  the  words  of  a  master  :  “  Appar¬ 
ent  contradiction  belongs  to  the  indwelling  pulsa¬ 
tion  of  self-movement  and  life.”  But  in  the  in¬ 
sight  which  man’s  highest  sentiments  (of  truth , 
beauty ,  goodness ,  and  love )  give  into  the  life  of  the 
Absolute  Spirit  these  contradictions  are  healed. 
This  insight  is  the  intuition  or  direct  experience 
and  conviction  of  the  reality  of  those  higher  pur¬ 
poses  1  of  the  will  which  spring  from  the  action  of 
thought  in  guiding  and  harmonizing  our  elemental 
feelings  and  emotions,  and  which  express  in  our 
lives  the  manifold  phases  of  the  True,  the  Beauti¬ 
ful,  and  the  Good,  whose  union  is  the  Absolute  for 
us.  The  principle  of  union  might  perhaps  prop¬ 
erly  be  designated  active  love ,  a  devotion  in  which 
the  true  self  is  realized.  This  experience  is  indeed 
in  us  subject  to  growth,  but  it  always  constitutes 
the  inward  and  immediate  feeling-life  of  the  self 
at  its  highest  level. 

The  intuition  or  insight  which  apprehends  all 

1  These  sentiments  and  purposes  find  expression  and  embodi¬ 
ment  in  the  historical  products  of  human  experience — in  works  of 
art  and  aesthetic  ideas,  in  systems  of  scientific  and  ethical  ideas, 
and  in  religious  systems  of  belief  and  conduct. 


190 


MODERN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 


the  difficulties  and  the  apparent  contradictions 
that  thought  can  bring  to  light,  precisely  through 
this  apprehension  knows  that  God  is  perfect  and 
yet  manifests  his  life  in  an  imperfect  world,  that 
he  is  eternal  and  yet  reveals  himself  in  the  tem¬ 
poral  world.  Thought  reveals  an  aspect  of  his 
life.  For  it  analyzes  or  mediates  that  which  is 
immediately  given  in  experience,  and  so  displays 
to  view  the  various  aspects  of  the  life  of  con¬ 
sciousness.  But  the  end  of  thought’s  analytic  and 
mediating  activity  is  the  attainment  of  a  higher 
immediacy — the  harmonious  and  directly  experi¬ 
enced  unity  of  the  spiritual  life.  In  the  last 
analysis  the  rationality  and  significance  of  human 
life  as  the  manifestation  of  the  Absolute  Life  arc 
known  as  a  felt  harmony  of  experience.  This 
harmony  can  be  apprehended  by  us  in  part  in  so 
far  as  we  endeavor  to  realize  an  analogous  harmony 
and  completeness  in  our  own  lives.  In  spite  of 
the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  understanding  this 
greatest  of  all  problems  we  may  come  to  see  our 
own  lives  as  unique  and  significant  if  fragmentary 
manifestations  of  the  Absolute  Life.  “  If  any  man 
will  do  his  will  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine.”  If 
one  would  get  light  on  the  nature  of  the  Absolute 
one  must  strive  to  become  a  harmonious  and  uni¬ 
fied  personality,  a  spiritual  individual. 


/ 


Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


012  01091  5355 


Date  Doe 

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